


Bordertown

by meoqie



Category: Borderland Series - Terri Windling, Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fae, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Canon-Typical Violence, Fae & Fairies, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, It's heavily inspired but not a direct crossover, M/M, Magic, Set in Terri Windling's Bordertown, Slow Burn, Sort Of, Strangers to Friends to Lovers, Trans Keith (Voltron), Trans Male Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-31
Updated: 2018-08-31
Packaged: 2019-07-04 23:54:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 25,662
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15852015
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/meoqie/pseuds/meoqie
Summary: In between the human world and the faerie Realm lays a place that's a bit of both and a whole lot of neither. Bordertown. Where human, fae, and 'halfie' - those that were mixed fae and human - live alongside each other, although not not necessarily peacefully. It is crowded and chaotic and filled with folk from homeless junkies to high fae royalty. Seelie prince Takashi Shirogane is on the 'high fae royalty' end of that scale. Taking the name Shiro, he banishes himself to Bordertown to escape his disgraceful past in the Realm.On a quest to fix his past mistakes, he stumbles into a chance encounter with a human witch called Keith who opens his eyes to the idea that maybe life outside the Realm can be enjoyed after all. But when magic and honor are involved, things are never straightforward, and Bordertown can be as treacherous for a humbled high fae as it is for a human vagabond.For the Sheith Big Bang 2018





	1. I

**Author's Note:**

> This was my first time participating in a Big Bang, and this fic is actually the longest completed piece I've ever written. Trial by fire, I guess? 
> 
> I've had this concept kicking around in the back of my mind ever since a conversation with [Parker](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ghostlypng/profile) about a year ago, but wasn't quite sure how to use it. I had a fragment of the first chapter written but had resigned myself to the fact that it was just going to languish in my drafts forever without any hope for a coherent plot. Enter the SBB, a lot of brainstorming, and I managed to somehow churn out a fic that I'm really happy with.
> 
> Many thanks to [Natalie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunflowerwonder/profile) for being a fantastic beta and overall great hype man. She's the best and I love her with all my heart. 
> 
> The art featured in this fic is by [Marissa](http://myssiesart.tumblr.com/)!

Bordertown - the gutter where all the castoffs from both worlds found themselves sooner or later.

 

Shiro quickly discovered that the ‘town’ part was a little misleading; it was so much more. A long, narrow strip of land on the ever wavering edges of the human world and the Realm. You could walk from what felt like a Parisian village to a Chinese market district in the span of a day, provided you knew the right route. It was crowded and chaotic, a mixture of every culture, species, and walk of life. And everyone who lived in Bordertown, human and fae alike, had their own reasons for being there.

For Shiro, that reason was disgrace.

In the Realm, everyone knew of his shame and failure, from the high elven courts to the lowest brownie. The glamour he used to hide his disfigurement couldn’t conceal the truth of his scandal, the whispers and averted gazes. But here he got to be just another anonymous nobody running from his past.

At the moment, though, he was running from something a little more corporeal than the abstract concept of his past, and arguably more embarrassing. He was sprinting, full-tilt, down narrow alleys, in a desperate attempt to escape a particularly furious chihuahua - somehow managing to keep pace with him.

Shiro ducked under low-hanging laundry lines and dodged piles of trash as he sped along, wrinkling his nose at the stench that emanated from some suspicious dark smears on the pavement. He just needed to find his way back to a main square, somewhere he could lose the cursed chihuahua in a crowd of people. The sky was on the edge of twilight, which meant the main plazas were just beginning to wake with the club kids and musicians and magicians, promising him a more populated area to lose the incensed chihuahua in. But the maze of back streets was like a shifting labyrinth, not letting him escape.

Finally, a brighter gap between buildings caught Shiro’s attention as a likely escape from the tangle of back alleys. He nimbly turned towards it by vaulting over a trash can, racing to relative safety.

As he drew near, the rumble of a motorcycle was all the warning Shiro had against an impending collision. He burst out of the alley - and was nearly run over by the cherry red motorcycle in a hazardous frying-pan-into-fire tableau. Disaster was averted thanks to his and the rider’s equally quick reflexes; Shiro suffered no worse than a scuffed knee from sliding on the cobblestones. The bike skidded to a rough stop as well, the engine cutting out.

The rider pulled off his helmet, an angry expression on his face.

“Sorry!” Shiro gasped out. “I’m being chased--”

He couldn’t bring himself to admit what was chasing him, but high-pitched yaps echoing down the alley he’d just exited did the job of revealing the identity of his pursuer.

To his surprise, the rider’s eyes widened.

“You pissed off Ol’ Taco?” he exclaimed, looking horrified.

“I… yes?” Shiro said, bewildered.

“Get on,” the rider said quickly, glancing down the alley as he yanked his helmet back on. “Hurry up, get on!”

Shiro wasn’t in any position to look a gift horse, or a gift motorcycle, in the mouth. He jumped on the back of the bike and held tight to the rider’s waist as he kicked it back into gear. Whatever the body of the bike was made with, it wasn’t steel, because Shiro couldn’t feel the telltale burn of iron in his nose. It shook and rattled beneath the extra weight as they took off down the street, dodging pedestrians and potholes.

While the chihuahua had been able to keep pace with a fleeing faerie, the motorcycle was too fast for it. They soon left it far behind, speeding down the cobblestone roads as the fairy lights above them flickered to life. Music was already playing from just about every bar and cafe. Shiro felt the wind shift with the setting sun, and the bike beneath him shuddered from the gas engine to the spellbox and back again.

Clubs and hip cafes gradually gave way to quiet bookstores and cozy eateries. The road narrowed, becoming more of a walkway, and the rider stopped the bike. Shiro took it as his cue to climb off.

“You’re new around here, aren’t you?” the rider asked, removing his helmet again.

“Relatively so, yes,” Shiro admitted, finally catching his breath. “What was that? It seemed like a normal dog, but no chihuahua should be able to run that fast.”

“Ol’ Taco is the guardian spirit of that borough, from Chalupa Avenue to Spork Lane,” the rider explained. “She’s possessed with the soul of the Taco Bell dog.”

“I don’t know what that is,” Shiro said, mystified.

“Long story,” the rider said dismissively. “Just don’t ever go near that section of Bordertown again, and you’ll be fine.”

“Oh I won’t,” Shiro said. “Thank you, by the way. I’m in your debt. I am Shiro.”

“Keith,” the rider introduced. “Buy me dinner and we’ll consider the debt repaid.”

Shiro nodded slightly. “This is an amenable contract.”

Most humans in Bordertown knew better than to hoard fae favors, but there was always a risk of admitting to a debt of obligation.

Keith quirked an eyebrow. “No need to be so formal, Mr. Fancy Pants. How do you feel about Thai food?”

Shiro paused, wondering why the human was asking. “Oh, you want me to join you?”

“That’s generally how buying someone dinner works, yeah.”

“That’s fine, I suppose.”

Shiro actually had no idea what Thai food was.

Whatever it was, it was apparently available nearby, because Keith walked his bike to a small parking lot and pocketed the keys, gesturing for Shiro to follow him.

With no choice but to follow if he wanted to complete their contract, Shiro did.

“Have you been here a while?” he asked as they walked across the square together. “You seem to be knowledgeable.”

Keith nodded. “About seven years now. But you pick up knowledge quickly if you’re open to learning.”

Shiro felt slightly chastened at that. Despite his fall from glory, his noble background had prompted him to remain insular and apart even in a place where his bloodline was meaningless. Relatively speaking, at least. He still had the disposable income that came with his true title. It bought him a nice apartment and the luxury of someone to do his housework. It was still much rougher living than he was used to.

“What were you even doing in that neighborhood? No offense to all parties involved, but it doesn’t really seem like your usual neck of the woods.”

Shiro made a face. “I got lost,” he confessed. “I thought I could take a shortcut. The next thing I knew, this chihuahua was trying to pee on my shoe. Clearly, I should have let it.”

“Yeah,” Keith said. “That would have been the mark of safe passage from the guardian spirit. Didn’t you sense the strong magical energy?”

Ashamed, Shiro’s shoulders slumped. “I should have. But I was blinded by assuming such an insignificant and crude creature couldn’t possibly be the source of powerful magic.”

“Things are often more than what they appear, here,” Keith said. “Someone like you should know that.”

“Someone like me…?” Shiro began.

Keith’s gaze trailed over Shiro’s face, blatantly inspecting the scars there. Shiro realized with a start that he had the Sight. His glamour would be completely invisible to him. Self-consciously, he gripped the end of his empty sleeve.

Keith didn’t seem to notice Shiro’s discomfort, gesturing to the door of a nearby restaurant.

“Thai food,” he said simply, leading him inside.

The restaurant was small and cramped and overly warm, but Shiro had to admit that it smelled delicious. They squished themselves into one of the few open booths, and a hobgoblin soon arrived to hand them menus before scuttling off underneath the tables back to the kitchen.

“This place is interesting,” Shiro commented absently as he looked around. The walls were made of a reddish brick and the lantern-like lights overhead cast the room in a cozy glow. A trumpet vine was hijacking a nearby corner, and tiny pixies had taken up residence in the blooms.

“Have you been to a human restaurant before?” Keith asked.

Shiro shook his head. “I don’t get out much,” he admitted

Keith hummed in acknowledgement, seeming disinterested in any reasoning behind it. They lapsed into mutual silence as they turned their attention to the menus.

Shiro was grateful for Keith’s lack of curiosity. He found most interactions exhausting, even with the protection of his glamour that prevented the worst of the awkward questions. There was always the risk of someone recognizing him despite his mask of magic. Besides, what did he ever need to leave for? Deliveries of anything he could possibly want was available at all hours in Bordertown.

Only one thing prompted Shiro to venture from the safety of his home - the hope of finding someone who could heal his scars. Before his run-in with the magical chihuahua, he’d been chasing down yet another rumor; which had been just one more disappointment. Every rumor had led to a dead end or a delusional cult.  
He mentally shook himself out of the discouraging train of thought and focused on the menu in front of him.

Everything on it was completely foreign to Shiro. Tom Yum Goong? Gaeng Daeng? Pad Krapow Moo Saap? He wasn’t sure how to even pronounce some of the dishes, and he spoke five different Elven tongues.

There were no accompanying descriptions, on the assumption that everyone eating there chose to do so because they already liked the cuisine and knew what to expect.

He decided to give up and just order whatever Keith ordered.

Shiro studied Keith in the meantime as the man continued to browse the menu. He was very pretty, for a human. Thick black hair, almost-purple blue eyes, a slender figure. Gold studs dotted his ears, and his long nails were lacquered with a matching mirror-finish gold paint. Now that Shiro was looking, it was obvious that he had the Sight, and a touch of other magic as well. An amethyst pendant hanging from his neck was charmed; its magical signature matching its wearer. The charm seemed to be a generic ward of protection and safety, typical for humans who lived in close proximity to the fickle fae.

Some of the humans in Bordertown came because of their innate magical abilities granted them unique destinies. The seventh sons of sevenths sons, those born under a certain star or portent, made for a world that had long since faded away into history. They could chase their heroic fate in a place that still had room for kings and quests.

That wasn’t Keith’s reason, Shiro could sense. The man was a hedgewitch at best, capable of small charms and maybe lighting candles on a good day with a strong wind from the Realm. The spellbox that ran the magical portion of his motorcycle engine wasn’t his own.

“Why are you staring at me?” Keith asked, his eyes not even moving from the menu.

“I was just wondering why you choose to live here, in Bordertown,” Shiro said, startled into blunt honesty.

Keith set the menu aside and drummed his painted nails on the battered wooden tabletop, frowning. “I suppose I owe you a truth or two, since I can See you. Your reasons for being here are obvious enough. If it makes you feel any better, most of the high fae who choose to live here are also disfigured in some way.”

Shiro recoiled slightly, thousands of years of prejudice rearing its head despite his own crippled state.

Keith seemed to immediately realize that was the wrong thing to say, and his eyebrows knitted together.

“Sorry, I didn’t think before I said that. I was just trying to reassure you that you’re not alone.”

“Your intentions were pure,” Shiro acknowledged. “But, I think I am due some truths.”

Keith sighed. “I’m here because my family didn’t want me,” he said. “I came to Bordertown because it’s the easiest place to be an outcast.”

Sympathy spread over Shiro’s indignance like a balm.

“So we have some things in common, then.”

“I have plenty of scars, too, I assure you. Most people do,” Keith said with a wry twist of his mouth. “Anything else you’d like to know?”

Shiro asked the question that had been burning in the back of his mind since earlier in their interaction.

“What’s Taco Bell?”

 

* * *

 

They chatted amiably over dinner, the sharing of soul-deep secrets making for easier conversation.

Keith’s backstory was like so many others. He first came to Bordertown seven years ago as a runaway teen, and scratched a living any way he could once the tradable goods he’d brought with him ran out. Shiro didn’t ask about his early days, and Keith didn’t offer up details, the same way Shiro didn’t talk about how he’d gotten his injuries. Keith had eventually become a message runner. First on his feet, and now he had his beloved motorcycle - powered by a gas engine most days and a spellbox for the times that the breeze from the Realm was a little too strong for human-made motors to function. In a place where technology was unreliable and magical means were a risk, having someone carry a physical message everywhere from Dragon’s Tooth Hill to Carmine Street was the best way to ensure something sensitive would arrive at its destination unchanged. Those who were fast and trustworthy could make good money in this place.

Shiro left the restaurant with the knowledge that he liked Thai food, a vague understanding of human fast food chains, and the assumption that he was unlikely to ever see Keith again.

Debt repaid and truths exchanged, they went their separate ways into the warm evening. Shiro found himself fingering the hem of his empty sleeve more than usual as he walked towards his neighborhood. How many people did he pass that could See him the way he truly was? Were they horrified by his appearance, or simply indifferent? How many other fae walking these streets were also hiding their real faces?

One thing Keith had said was haunting him - in Bordertown, things weren’t always what they seemed. What if one of the ‘dead end’ rumors he’d been chasing down wasn’t a dead end at all, but he wasn’t receptive enough to see the truth?

Lost in thought and making the trip home with less than half his attention directed towards where he was going, Shiro didn’t notice when a robed figure stumbled into his path, and he collided into them, sending them tumbling to the ground,

“I’m terribly sorry!” Shiro exclaimed, reaching out a hand to help them up, only to recoil as a heavily scarred face of an Unseelie elf appeared from underneath the hood of the robe.

The elf woman hissed at him, and he felt his stomach twist with fear.

“Does my appearance disgust you, Seelie prince?” she said, rising to her feet without his assistance. She pushed back her hood farther, and Shiro was further horrified to see the iron crown pressed against her scarred flesh.

She laughed. “Perhaps you should not spend so much time hiding from your own face, _Shirogane_ , maybe then you would be accustomed to such sights.”

Shiro’s hand flew to his scars, somehow visible to a blind woman despite his glamour.

“How did you- how can you-?” he stammered, briefly closing his eyes.

When he opened them again, the woman was gone, as if she’d never been there at all.

With new urgency, Shiro collected himself and hurried home, no longer letting his thoughts wander at will.

 

* * *

 

**K E I T H**

  
Wax dripped from the multitude of candles that covered his desk as Keith measured herbs and oils late into the night. More of them were just herbal remedies than actual potions, but sometimes medicine was better than magic. Keith had learned that sometimes a large part of being a witch was knowing when not to be one.

In curling, tidy script, he labelled each glass bottle, sealed them with a cork and wax, and added them to his storage shelf. Working as a witch didn’t pay much, but it was enough extra that on top of his messenger gig, he was comfortable. No more squatting in derelict buildings or putting up with unsavory company just to sleep in a real bed. His apartment was a single room in the converted attic of a larger home, and it was the nicest thing aside from his bike that he’d ever been able to call his own. The sloped ceilings made him grateful for his petite stature, and if there were sometimes unwanted invaders in the shape of mice and insects, that’s what he had Cherry for.

At the moment, Cherry was curled up in the center of his bed, her warm orange fur looking extra red in the candlelight. He watched her sleeping form for a moment until he realized the shadows dancing across his vision were more from weariness than the flickering candles.

With a yawn and a snap of his fingers, he extinguished the flames, plunging his apartment into darkness.

Cherry trilled in displeasure as he shifted her aside in order to climb into bed.

“Oh hush, you brat, you have the bed to yourself all day long,” he scolded the pampered cat.

A few scratches behind her ears had her purring, and she curled up again.

“I met someone interesting today,” he murmured to her. “A Seelie prince, new to Bordertown. He’s not here to play, like most of his kind are. He’s trying to find his place after something horrible happened to him.”

Cherry didn’t have anything to say in response, because cats generally don’t talk.

“I hope he comes across better fortune soon,” Keith said through a yawn. “Well, goodnight Cherry. Have sweet dreams.”

Cherry still didn’t reply, but she stretched out her paws and briefly purred a little louder, which Keith interpreted as her wishing him goodnight as well. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was basing the setting pretty much entirely off my memory of _The Essential Bordertown: A Traveller's Guide to the Edge of Faerie_ which I read a solid ten years ago, at least, so if this feels super inaccurate to the source inspiration, that is why. I can't seem to get my hands on a copy anymore, which is a shame, because I remember adoring everything about the concept of a place between magic and mundane. 
> 
> When I came up with the concept for this fic, we were still on S4 I think? And through the course of actually writing it, S6 and S7 were released. So if anything feels kinda off compared to canon, it's probably because I was basing things on a more limited amount of canon material. A few things I went back through and edited, but other things would have affected the plot too much to change. I want to express a formal apology to Krolia and Keith's dad. You both were wonderful and loving parents and I'm sorry I made you be terrible people in this fic for the sake of plot.


	2. II

_“What is it the mortals say, pride cometh before a fall?”_

_Shiro tried to pull away, but the cords binding his limbs held him tight._

_“What do you want from me?” he demanded. “Haven’t you already humiliated me enough?”_

_The unseelie fae laughed, his face a featureless blur surrounded by bright blond hair in the darkness._

_“We’re going to make sure you never, ever forget what happened here,” he said._

_One of the others approached, a vessel held between a length of branches. Whatever was inside glowed a bright orange, and when Shiro realized what it was, he began to struggle even more against his bonds, to no avail._

_After they poured the molten iron over his face, he couldn’t even feel when they took a blade to his arm._

 

  
Shiro woke with a gasp, soaked with sweat and feeling phantom pain in the burns on his face. He shuddered, struggling to calm down as his heart pounded painfully against his chest. The nightmares used to be constant, night after night he would return to the darkest moment of his life. Now, they were less frequent, but he hadn’t escaped them entirely.

Returning to sleep wasn’t an option, so he abandoned his bed in favor of a quick shower and brewing an herbal tisane that was meant to help with fears and anxiety. The mixture had been a gift from the halfie girl that served as his housekeeper, a gesture that had solidified Shiro’s trust in her within his first month in Bordertown. It wasn’t fae made, so he’d been initially doubtful. Yet the herbal blend seemed to work. At the very least it had served to reduce his nightmares to something that occured only after something brought the trauma back to the forefront of his mind. Like encountering the creepy Unseelie woman. Shiro shuddered as her scarred face appeared in his mind's eye. The fact that she’d purposely chosen to scar herself by wearing an iron crown was the most disturbing part. Just thinking about the pain she must have endured as the scars built up made his own scars throb.

Sitting on his balcony, Shiro sipped the tisane and watched as the sun rose over Bordertown, transforming the vague shapes of buildings into a patchwork riot of colors and designs. The apartments he resided in were clearly designed as the human approximation of what elven homes were like - very art nouveau with looping wooden screens in place of wrought iron. Across the street, an actual faerie-built dwelling served as a coffee shop. It was nestled between a modern brick warehouse converted into wide open studio apartments on one side, and a sprawling Victorian manor on the other. The same kind of creeping ivy was gradually taking over all three. In the spring, the ivies had been covered with purple blooms like stars, but they’d faded with the summer heat. He found that he missed them. Perhaps he should buy a plant. He dismissed the idea as immediately as it arrived. Knowing him, he’d kill it.

He eventually roused himself from his absent reveries. He’d had a revelation last night, and he intended to chase down what he sought, no matter the cost. And he was going to start in the most unlikely of places.

The human cults, all those that sounded the most insane and improbable. Things weren’t always what they seemed, and never again would he overlook something because he wasn’t truly seeing it for what it was. Glamour was both a blessing and a curse. It hid the ugliness, but it also obscured the truth.

As he rinsed his mug in the sink, Shiro caught sight of his warped reflection in the faucet. For a moment he saw his true face before the glamour took over, once again his skin smooth, both eyes clear and whole. The usual revulsion crawled up his throat, and he swallowed it down. If he wanted to see the truth, perhaps he needed to stop hiding behind his own lies.

His chest grew tight and he gripped the edge of the counter, fighting back the panic that came with the idea of showing his real face. Hideous, deformed, broken…

_“Perhaps you should not spend so much time hiding from your own face - maybe then you would be accustomed to such sights.”_

He did not want to be accustomed to it, he wanted to erase it, wipe it away as if had never happened.

_“I have plenty of scars, too, I assure you. Most people do.”_

Visualizing Keith’s face and ambivalent voice helped steady his breathing. Gradually, the constricting feeling in his chest eased up, like loosening ropes. He blinked rapidly, aware that his vision was threatening to go black. Spiderwebbing darkness narrowed his already limited sight but as he filled his lungs with air the blackness receded.

Maybe he should make himself another cup of that tisane.

 

* * *

 

By the time his halfie housekeeper arrived around noon, the jar containing the herbal tisane was nearly empty, but Shiro was wearing his true face.

Romelle was a sweet girl, too young to be on her own, like so many of the kids in Bordertown. She was petite, her skin dotted with iridescent turquoise freckles, and Shiro was willing to bet that if she’d been full fae she’d have wings. Shiro made sure to pay her well, as other employment options for a young, pretty individual were limited. Too often he saw the hollowed-out expressions of human and halfie children in the shadows of alleys, strung out on chemicals or Mad River water, desperate for escape. The worst part was knowing there were people out there so perverted they’d accept what these poor souls were forced to offer.

Shiro hovered hesitantly by the kitchen sink as he waited for Romelle to enter, his face illuminated by the sunlight through the window.

Romelle took one look at him and gasped, dropping the bag of cleaning supplies she was holding. Bottles and sponges bounced across the tile floor, and Shiro ducked his head, hiding his face behind his hand.

“I apologize, I… I should have warned you,” he stammered out.

Romelle blew out a breath, followed by a nervous sounding laugh. “You just startled me. Is that what you actually look like?”

Shiro sighed. “Unfortunately.”

Ignoring the scattered supplies, Romelle crossed the kitchen to lightly place a hand on Shiro’s arm. He flinched.

“Hey, it’s okay,” she said. “Check it out,” Romelle turned and lifted up the back of her shirt, revealing more glitter-flecked skin.

A large, jagged scar was directly over where her heart would be, faded with time and warped from growth. It was knotty in places and strangely smooth in others, the healing process clearly having been turbulent.

“Open heart surgery, when I was four, and then again when I was seven because they botched it the first time,” she explained, dropping her shirt and facing Shiro again.

Shiro didn’t know what to say.

“I honestly don’t even know if it’s actually fixed now,” Romelle continued. “Because that second surgery devastated my family financially, dad drank himself to death and I ended up on the street. I could drop dead any minute, or I could live until I’m a hundred.”

“Romelle... that’s terrible.” Shiro made a helpless hand gesture, floundering for how to respond to the confession. “I had no idea, I’m sorry,” he finally managed.. What else could he say or do?

Romelle just shrugged. “It is what it is, you know? Sometimes you’re just dealt a bad hand in life, and nothing can change it. All that matters is what you do with what you’ve been given.”

Shiro bit his tongue against what he wanted to say, which was that bad things weren’t supposed to happen to people like _him_. A prince of the realm was supposed to be perfect and untouchable.

“So now I’m here, and I’m gonna dance all night every weekend at one of the fancy clubs on Hadley Avenue and if my heart gives out, so what? I’m gonna enjoy the time I have and not treat myself like I’m a piece of glass that needs to be shut away forever.”

It was a bit pointed, and Shiro was taken aback. He was existing as something of a shut-in, but what else could he do? What he loved was taken away from him, and he couldn’t get that life back unless his body was fixed.

“Sometimes, the things you think you need aren’t what you really need, you know? It’s just what you _want_.” Romelle said.

Shiro joined her, righting a spray bottle that was beginning to drip its bright blue contents. “But how can you know what you need?” he asked, frowning.

_What was the difference between a want and a need?_

“Oh, the eternal question,” Romelle said, snorting in amusement. “I don’t think I can answer that for you. You can only find the answer yourself.” She stood, nodding at the jar on the counter. “I’ll bring you more of that on Thursday.”

 

* * *

 

  
Scars were strange things. In the realm, the only scars that Shiro ever saw were his own. Here, though, he was beginning to notice them everywhere. It took him until early evening to work up the courage to step outside his apartment without his glamour, and when he did he was a little startled by the reactions he received. Or rather, lack of reaction. A few folks gave him a second glance, but most barely even gave him a first.

It gave Shiro free reign to stare openly at them instead, and that’s when he began to see that scars were incredibly common. Fey, halfie, human, all of them had stories etched into their skin. Here, a burly man with a bright smile wore the evidence of time spent over a hot stove - knife nicks on his fingers, small burns on his forearms. A halfie individual had some childhood illness that left dark pits on their face, but if the bright glitter smeared across their skin was any indication, they didn’t seem to mind. The ones that struck Shiro the most were those that had faded lines that were too uniform and numerous to be anything other than self-inflicted. Those scars, he thought, were telling of deeper scars on the soul.

Would fixing his body heal his _heart_? Was that what Romelle meant by knowing what he needed?

His head was starting to hurt with the struggle of puzzling all this out.

He’d never really had to think about who he was or what he wanted before. Born into luxury, raised in a bubble of laughter and smiles, bolstered by his own beauty and talents. Shiro craved to return to that time, when everything was simple.

In the realm, they would dance from dusk until dawn under the lights strung between the trees, nothing like the imitations mockingly called ‘fairy lights’ that were everywhere in Bordertown. These were true witchlights, flickering with magic and beguiling any human who happened upon them.

As if he’d ever needed anything other than his face and voice to lure humans to the realm as his playthings.

 

_“What’s your name again, sweetheart?”_

_A muffled giggle, an exaggerated pout. “Adam.”_

_“Adam.”_

_Shiro carded his fingers through soft brown locks, so shot through with bright gold he could have easily been mistaken for a fae._

_There was something so alluring about a human who resembled the fair folk in beauty. The knowledge that this beauty was fleeting, that it could fade in a span of time hardly noticeable to a faerie. It turned what was common into something precious._

_He pulled his lovely Adam into a kiss, his name already fading from his memory. There had been dozens of boys just like him in his bed, and dozens more equally beautiful girls and individuals who were both or neither or something in between. Humans were as interchangeable and numerous as flowers in a field._

_How tragic it must be, to have a single, short lifetime to try to fit the full breadth of everything there was to think and feel and know. Shiro supposed that was why they always misunderstood his words and his intentions._

_“I thought you loved me!” He heard that sentence over and over. “I thought I meant something to you!”_

_Of course he loved them. He loved them all. A faerie couldn’t lie, everyone knew that. When he said those words, he meant it. He loved them until he grew bored of loving them and then he didn’t love them any longer. It was so simple, so straightforward. It wasn’t his fault that a lifetime passed in what felt like only a week to these weak-minded humans. A lifetime of love from a faerie was incredibly generous, in his opinion. Every honey-sweet kiss and passionate embrace was a priceless gift. Why couldn’t they just understand that?_

 

A flash of golden curls in the corner of his vision brought the memory of Adam and the countless nameless individuals just like him rushing back to the forefront of Shiro’s mind, and he felt a stab of guilt. In the realm he’d been completely detached from the lives of humans. Here, he was surrounded by them. He was learning their stories. He felt pity and compassion for those who were suffering. When he returned to his rightful place in the Realm, perhaps there were some activities he would not be resuming.

He absently followed the girl with the golden curls to a small cafe, sitting at a corner table with a cup of a mysteriously purple beverage with pearly black globes floating at the bottom that he’d seen several in front of him people order. It was sweet, and the globes were chewy with their own unique flavor. Shiro found that he was enjoying himself with his sweet drink and vantage point to observe everyone coming and going. Most people ordered their drinks and left, sipping on the straws as they walked. But some stayed, sitting at the rickety round tables either alone or with friends.

Shiro almost forgot he wasn’t wearing his glamour. It was easy to blend in to the ragtag background of Bordertown, just another lost soul in the crowd. Broken dreams and shameful pasts woven together with found family and new hope made up the fabric of this in-between place. He wasn’t sure how he felt about how well he fit in amongst that.

An almost oppressive aura of magic announced the arrival of other high fae before they actually entered the shop. The handful of halfie kids in the cafe wrinkled their noses, and the only other full fae bristled, his glamour shifting to lengthen the spikes on his leather jacket. He’d looked quite appropriately unapproachable already, but now he was like a cobra with his hood flared. Shiro straightened his spine slightly. High fae they might be, but they were not royalty. This was his court now, he would not stand for it to be disturbed by an unwelcome presence.

They swept in as if this little cafe was a midsummer ball, dripping with glamour and fresh from the Realm. Ugh, tourists.

To them, Bordertown was just another shiny bauble, a fun oddity to play around with for a bit before returning to the Realm where they wouldn’t think for another moment about those of their own who were there because they had no other choice. Shiro bristled with indignance.

Their eyes landed on him, and they both visibly recoiled as if they’d encountered the foulest creature on the planet. Bile rose in Shiro’s throat.

 _This isn’t who I am_ , he wanted scream. _I was once fairer than any of you. How dare you reject me like this?_

After some frantic whispers between themselves, the high fae turned around and left, the static air of tension gradually bleeding out of the cafe.

The high fae in the leather jacket gave Shiro a grateful glance, but he didn’t want gratitude for anything he’d done. He hadn’t sent them away with the force of his own might, they were just repulsed by his disfigurements. The sweet beverage turned sour in his mouth, and he took his leave.

 

 

* * *

 

**K E I T H**

 

A familiar glittery-freckled hand waved in front of Keith’s face, and he blinked, looking up from the novel that had him so engrossed he hadn’t even noticed anyone enter the small shop that allowed him to sell his wares.

“Romelle! Hey,” he greeted, dog-earing the page and setting the book aside.

“Something super interesting?” the halfie girl asked with a laugh.

“It’s a sequel to a book I had read before I came to Bordertown,” Keith explained. “I didn’t even know there was a sequel. Apparently it’s a whole series now. A newbie loaned me this volume.”

Romelle sighed softly, leaning against his counter. “Do you ever regret coming here? Like, becoming so out of touch with the world?”

“Sometimes. Especially when I meet a newbie and they’re talking about stuff that doesn’t even sound real. But then I remember that I would probably be living on the streets, and I’m fine with being out of touch.”

“Oh, word,” Romelle agreed. “Anyway, I need some more of that anti-anxiety tisane blend, for one of my employers. Not to be a gossip, but apparently this entire time he’s had a glamour on! I mean, most of the high fae do, obviously.”

“Obviously.”

“But like, he’s super different without it. Big scar on his face.” Romelle made a motion that suggested a blotchy scar. “And he’s missing his right arm.”

Keith frowned slightly. “I actually ran into a fae the other day like that. His name is Shiro…?”

“Yeah!” Romelle said, her eyes widening. “I always forget you have the Sight.” She leaned closer to Keith. “He’s kinda more handsome with the scars, I know that’s weird to say.”

“No, no, I know what you mean,” Keith agreed. “The fae are kinda… too perfect sometimes? It gets boring. With the scars he’s... “

He floundered for words, and a mischievous smile crept across Romelle’s face.

“Do you want me to arrange another ‘accidental’ meeting between you two?” she teased.

Keith felt himself flush. “No! That’s… that’s not necessary. I just appreciate him aesthetically. He’s still a high fae, you know?”

“Do I ever,” Romelle said with a sigh.

“Anyway, I can actually mix up a custom batch since I’ve met the guy, if you want to come by to grab it tomorrow.”

“Sure! And the offer to hook you guys up is always on the table…”

“I’ll see you tomorrow, Romelle!” Keith grabbed his book and hid his burning face behind it. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so glad Romelle exists now because before I just had a random OC who felt super out of place amidst all the other canon characters. Also, she's just generally great and I love her.


	3. III

Fate was a funny sort of thing. People often think fate is fixed, immutable; destiny written in the stars the day someone is born. That is not the case. Fate is more like branches on a tree, with innumerable possibilities hinging on small, seemingly inconsequential instances. For Shiro, the night at the cafe was one such instance. Had the high fae not entered, it could have placed him on a very different path in his life. But they did, and so his desire to have his body healed was all the more reawakened.

If he was going to resume his search for someone who could cure him in the most unlikely of places, there was nowhere better to start than the Mad River.

Running almost the entire length of Bordertown, the Mad River was a narrow, sluggish channel of vividly red water. To drink it would drive a human mad, hence the name. It was like a drug in its effects on the drinker, and just as addictive. The Mad River attracted the most deranged of cults and self-proclaimed prophets.

So that was where Shiro would go.

It was a long walk from his neighborhood. The streets grew narrower the farther he got from home; buildings were more derelict, graffiti blossoming across every surface. It had its own kind of charm, at first. Laundry was strung from window to window, children played with chalk and toys in the alleys, vendors sold simple wares and home-cooked food on the corners, and people sat on steps to smoke and gossip. They gave him odd looks as he passed, but no one called out to him or tried to stop him.

It was when the signs of life gradually vanished that it became eerie. It was closest to the river that the slums were the darkest and most ramshackle. Anyone who lived here would be cloistered away inside the buildings, strung out or sleeping off the effects of the night before. This was not a place that showed its true colors in the daylight.

Finally, actual buildings gave way to a shantytown of tarps and lean-tos, and beyond that, the river.

Air around the mad river always had a peculiar scent to it. Sweet, at first, like the smell of sugared treats at a fair. But beneath that it was acrid, like rot. Fitting, for a fluid that would first take whoever drank it to heights unknown before destroying their mind. Most sensible folk avoided the mad river unless they had a very good reason to be there - or they were brought against their will. Shiro had never actually been near it before.

Squatters lined the banks, most of them too far gone on the water to do much more than stare blankly into the distance. They were filthy, and contributed to the underlying foul scent of the river. Shiro did his best to hold his breath as he picked his way through the maze of bodies. More than once he passed a prone figure that may very well have been a corpse. Those that weren’t too deep under reached out for him, and he quickened his pace, wrinkling his nose. For all the misfortunes he’d suffered, at least he wasn’t like these poor souls.

His goal was a building not much more than a shack built of scavenged materials. It housed what was a cult dedicated to the ‘enlightenment’ provided by the mad river. Unsurprisingly, the turnover rate of the leaders was extremely high, since the final side effect of drinking from the river was death. Shiro absently wondered if that wasn’t actually the goal all along, since there was no shortage of newcomers eager to try it out for themselves. The thought was sobering, and a wave of pity for those afflicted with the addiction washed over him. What had they experienced that this felt like their only way out?

Finally, he reached the entrance, and he ducked low under the crooked entryway. Inside was dark, the only source of light being the sun leaking through the cracks in the walls and ceiling. It was also empty. He frowned, looking around the small space.

“Things aren’t always what they appear,” he murmured to himself, before purposely angling his head to look around the room from the corner of his eye.

There, on the far side of the room, something flashed gold, brighter than it should be in the gloom.

Beneath the grimy veneer of a human cult was something fae. As soon as Shiro was able to see the truth, the glamour peeled away like old paint. Plywood and tarps became the branches of ash and yew, and the scent of the river vanished. Time itself seemed to fold and warp, as the light filtering in from above was now from the moon.

It didn’t transform the shack into a pleasant place, by any means. If anything, Shiro felt more unsettled as the gateway appeared. The twisted copse of trees was ringed with iron stakes, and it had the Unseelie court written all over it. On the far end the bent trunks of two trees formed a doorway. To go through there would be to return to the very kind that hurt him in seek of healing.

How far was he willing to go to get his true face back?

Shiro turned around and saw that the copse was entirely enclosed - save for the door. Well, it seemed the choice had been taken out of his hands. Fighting back the involuntary panic that always came with confronting anything Unseelie, he walked under the wooden archway.

The temperature promptly plummeted, the gloom increasing along with a scent of earth. So this led directly in the Realm. Water dripped somewhere in the distance, and when Shiro touched the wall of the earthy tunnel, it came away damp. A sniff confirmed that the water was from the river he’d left behind. So the Mad River likely drew its source from the realm, and likelier still from the darker, Unseelie spaces. That explained a lot. He scrubbed his hand against his pants. The poison of the water didn’t affect the fae, but he felt tainted by the touch nonetheless.

Eventually the sloping ground levelled out and the tunnel widened, until Shiro found himself in a vast cave lit by an eerie purple glow that had no visible source.

“Well, well, well… So you’ve come to me, Seelie Prince.”

Shiro stiffened. He recognized the voice. He looked behind him, and the tunnel that led him here had vanished, cutting off all exits just like in the copse of trees. There was only more cave, and sitting on a throne, the scarred Unseelie woman.

“You,” He said, taking a step back.

She grinned. “You remembered me, just a simple beggar on the streets? You are more magnanimus than the stories of you would suggest.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” Shiro asked.

She cackled. “Nothing in particular. What brings you to my domain, your highness? Since you clearly weren’t expecting to see me.”

“I was… looking for something,” he said.

“A witch, perhaps?”

There was a rush of air and the Unseelie vanished like black smoke, just to reappear directly behind him. Shiro whirled, jumping back.

“One who can make you look beautiful and whole once again? Because if so, you’ve found one, highness.”

Shiro swallowed back the burning sensation of bile in the back of his throat.

“Why should I trust you? It was your kind who ruined me in the first place!” Hot anger pulsed beneath his skin, and he clenched his fist.

The witch laughed, vanishing again.

Shiro spun, but she didn’t reappear. “Show yourself!” He demanded.

When she spoke again, her voice seemed to come from all directions. Echoing through the cavernous space, the pressure against his ears sent him to his knees as he cried out in pain.

“What choice do you have, Seelie Prince? You have come to my domain of your own volition, and you cannot leave unless I allow it. Why not take what you came for?”

Shiro panted, glancing around. The witch was nowhere to be seen, and the cave was silent save for the distant dripping of water.

He was alone, and he was trapped.

What did he have to lose?

 

* * *

 

Shiro found out that the witch called herself Haggar, and not much else. It was hard to tell what she had even been before the scars from the crown took over her face, but he assumed based on her silvery hair that she was high fae. Her powerful magic wasn’t anything like what he’d seen an Unseelie fae use before, though. Perhaps the iron crown was a part of some dark ritual she’d performed to gain such abilities.

Haggar led him through a maze of tunnels, easily ducking to avoid the low hanging stalactites despite her sightless eyes. More than once Shiro stumbled on the uneven ground and smacked his head against the rocky protrusions. The air grew colder until every breath created a small cloud of vapor in front of his face. He shivered. What even was this place? He’d never experienced anything quite like it.

“Here,” Haggar said suddenly, the first words she’d spoken in what felt like hours.

They’d arrived at a door, plain black wood hung on silver hinges. But something about it filled Shiro with bone-chilling dread. Something told him that if he passed through that door, he would be forever changed. He glanced behind him at the tangle of tunnels. Going back that way alone was certain death. This door was just… potential death. Haggar pushed it open with a loud creak, and he followed her inside.

The mysterious purple glow of the tunnels had not continued into this room, and Shiro’s sense of dread increased as he walked into the pitch black nothingness. A feeling of claustrophobia climbed up the back of his throat as he had no way of gauging the size of the space in the complete darkness. His breathing grew shallow and he fought back panic. He couldn’t afford to break down here, not now. Haggar would surely seize upon anything she could use to hold over him. Already, requesting her help in healing his scars would be incurring a great debt.

With a flap of her baggy robes, Haggar flung up her arms, and the room blazed to sudden light as dozens of candles burst into flame. Shiro shielded his eye against the brightness, flinching. The reveal of what the room contained was almost worse than the unknown. Shelves covered in vials and jars lined the walls, all of them containing incredibly unpleasant things like viscous black fluid or body parts of indeterminate origin. Worse still was the instruments that rivaled those used by humans for torturing prisoners in the days of knights and castles. Shackles sprouted from wooden tables, strange tools hung from hooks on the edges of the shelves, and everywhere was the heavy scent of cold iron. It burned his nose and throat with every breath and made his scars ache with the memory of pain.

It was all too much, and Shiro stumbled away to the corner of the room to vomit onto the floor.

Haggar made a sound of disgust. “If you have quite finished desecrating my lab, we can discuss the terms of our agreement,” she said once he had nothing left to bring up.

Shiro coughed, slowly rising to his feet and wiping his mouth on his sleeve.

“I apologize,” he said, although his tone was anything but apologetic. “I am ready.”

 

* * *

 

Shiro blinked slowly, his eyelids still heavy with whatever drug Haggar had given him before she began the ritual. It was a gesture of good faith, she’d said, a promise that she was going to uphold her end of the bargain. His vision swam, the room eventually coming into focus. Haggar was hovering uncomfortably close to his face, and he attempted to jerk back only to be stopped by solid wood behind him and tight restraints on his… wrists.

With a gasp, Shiro turned his head to see his right arm shackled to the board beside his head. When he pulled at the manacle, he felt the sting of the iron even through the cloth wrapped around it. Real. It was real.

“Welcome back, highness,” Haggar said.

Her face was twisted into a smug sneer, making her all the more hideous.

“Now then, the bargain.” She made no motion to release him from the bindings. “In exchange for restoring the appearance of your body, you give me a year and a day of servitude to me and mine.”

Shiro frowned. That was it? He expected something much more… extreme.

“What is the catch?” he asked. Surely, there had to be one.

“Still you doubt me, even when I have already given you so much!” Haggar hissed. “That is all! You obey my every demand for a year and a day, and in return get all you’ve asked me for.”

It seemed… too good to be true. “What do you get out of this?” he pressed. “I feel as though I am getting the better end of this bargain.”

Haggar smiled. “Is benevolence not a good enough reason?” she asked.

Shiro gave her a flat look.

“I do not owe you any answers, princeling,” she said, the smile vanishing. “Either you want what I am offering, or you do not. My patience only extends so far.”

This was a trap of some kind. It couldn’t _not_ be. And he’d blundered into it just as foolishly as the last time he’d gotten tangled up with the Unseelie.

He slumped against the restraints, flinching at the bite of the iron. Haggar had him at her mercy, and she could easily refuse to release him if he didn’t accept her terms. And she knew this. He was lucky to have even been given all the liberties she’d allowed him. Resignation bled through his reluctance.

“Very well. I accept the bargain.”

Shiro prayed he wasn’t making the biggest mistake of his life trying to fix the damage caused by his last terrible mistake.

 

* * *

 

**K E I T H**

 

Keith measured out a careful spoonful of dried lavender, adding it to the jar balanced on the small scale on his worktable. Cherry watched from her nearby perch in the windowsill, the tip of her fluffy tail twitching occasionally.

He peered through the twilight gloom to read the small numbers, frowning as he realized the light from the window had faded with the sunset while he was focused on the tisane. He rummaged a box of matches from the drawer of the desk, not wanting to bother with expending the energy it would take to light the candles with magic. Extinguishing flames was easy with a little persuasion, creating fire was more difficult. It wasn’t worth the effort when matches would do the job just fine. When he’d first discovered his magical abilities, he’d been much more frivolous with them. Age and experience taught him that sometimes there was more power in knowing when not to use his gifts.

His magic wasn’t especially powerful or unique. Every hedgewitch and halfie could light and extinguish candles, it wasn’t exciting. Even the potions and poultices he could make weren’t especially magical, not really. They worked because people believed they would work. Suggestion could often be the most powerful magic of all. It was easy to make people see what they already wanted to see. In the world of humans, he was an oddity. Here in Bordertown, he was just one of dozens. He was much happier identifying himself as a messenger than a witch. Being a witch was more of the wallpaper of his life than anything else.

That didn’t stop him from fully embracing the _aesthetic_ of witchcraft, though. Today his nails were a deep purple with little silver moons stamped on each ring finger. Being in Bordertown meant the freedom to express himself without anyone giving him trouble for it. Most folk dressed far more outlandishly than he did.

The silver moons flashed in the candlelight as Keith sorted through his numerous bottles and packets of dried herbs. Chamomile, passion flower, sage…

He reached past Cherry to grab a wand of lepidolite to stir the mixture with. Apparently annoyed by his intrusion, the cat leaped from the windowsill to his bed with a trill, sending a box of tarot cards toppling to the floor.

“Cherry!” Keith scolded.

He bent to pick them up before pausing when he saw that several cards had spilled out face-up.

The Hermit, reversed. He glanced at the half-finished tisane on the table. That… definitely wasn’t a coincidence. Unwilling isolation and exile described Shiro perfectly.

Crossing over the card was The High Priestess, reversed, and The Devil, upright. Not particularly positive cards on their own, the combination was even more sinister. The High Priestess suggested at supernatural forces and hidden agendas. Perhaps more specifically, an individual scheming against Shiro, suggested by the enslavement and helplessness of The Devil card.

Shiro was naive, not much better than a newbie. His nature as a high fae blinded him to power that lurked in unusual places, like with the chihuahua guardian. This was something all the high fae were prone to overlook. It would only be an annoyance for a visitor who could return to the Realm whenever they wished. But Shiro was in exile without that as an option. He was vulnerable to being misled by someone he didn’t perceive as a danger until it was too late.

Keith gathered up the cards, setting them aside while he got out a few more ingredients to turn the anti-anxiety herbal blend into a spell of protection and clear-mindedness as well. No harm in a little magical multitasking, just in case.

Cherry curled up on his bed and began washing herself, one leg stuck high in the air.

“That’s not very dignified behavior for a familiar,” Keith said, measuring out basil and geranium.

Cherry ignored him and continued licking her butthole.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cherry is a perfect angel princess baby and I love her as much as I love all real cats.


	4. IV

It started out innocently enough. Having a Seelie high fae to boss around was an entertaining novelty for the rabble of Unseelie that made up Haggar’s unpleasant social circle. If a lowly lubberkin ordered Shiro to trim his toenails, he had to do so. Such was the constraints of his contract. To break it would be to forfeit his soul to Haggar.

A year and a day, he could endure humiliation for a year and a day. It was nothing worse than what he had experienced living in the Realm with his body scarred and broken. It was nothing, this was nothing, he could deal with this.

He was still allowed plenty of liberties, after all. He only had to serve when he was called for, the rest of the time he was permitted to continue on living his daily life as he had been. Which, admittedly, wasn’t that much of a freedom. He’d spent his time either being a shut-in or tracking down ways to heal his scars. Now he just was a shut-in, or a servant.

_Was this what it felt like to be a lesser fae?_

Romelle was still the only bright spot in his life. It was several day after his encounter with Haggar when she came by with a fresh jar of the tisane mixture. Hastily, he gathered his glamour back over himself, not wanting to deal with any probing questions about the sudden reappearance of his right arm. There was a flash of something that almost seemed like disappointment on Romelle’s face when she saw his once-again flawless visage. It was gone as quickly as it had come, replaced by her signature cheerful grin.

“This should work even better than last time, since Keith made it especially for you,” she proclaimed as he offered him the tisane.

Shiro blinked. Keith? As in, do-you-like-Thai-food Keith?

He accepted the jar, trying to reconcile the tidy handwriting with the motorcycle-riding witch he’d briefly encountered.

“I didn’t know you knew Keith,” he said.

“I didn’t know _you_ knew Keith!” Romelle replied. “Most of us - humans and halfies, that is - who have been here more than a few years all know each other. Safety in numbers and all that. Keith has probably made herbal teas for half the newbies in Bordertown.”

Shiro absently rubbed his thumb over the handwritten tag, feeling warm at the fact that Keith had made it pointedly for him.

“You should come to a party on Glint Row sometime,” Romelle suggested, too casual to be innocent. “You might see Keith again.”

“I’m not really one for parties these days,” Shiro said.

He pushed down the little flicker of excitement that the thought of seeing Keith again inspired.

Romelle shrugged with one shoulder. “The offer is always there. Just tell whoever is at the door that I invited you, they’ll let you in.”

“I appreciate that, Romelle. I’ll keep it in mind.”

He’d keep it in the back of his mind, but it was unlikely he’d do anything with the information. The idea of going to a party filled him with fear and revulsion. All he could imagine was the whirling revels of the Seelie court, where everyone would draw away from him as if his hideousness was contagious. It didn’t matter that a Bordertown party, especially one attended by humans and halfies, would be nothing like those events. The mere concept of a party left a sour taste in his mouth.

Maybe once he was healed, he could return to that sort of lifestyle, but he had a feeling that grand galas were ruined for him forever. There were too many bad memories wrapped up in everything about that kind of atmosphere.

Romelle departed, and Shiro let his glamour fall away as he brewed a cup of the fresh tisane. The aroma was notably different, and simply smelling it made him feel more relaxed. He adjusted his estimation of Keith’s witchcraft, feeling a bit foolish for having judged his abilities so poorly. This mixture was strong magic indeed, to be made by human hands yet so effective on a high fae. He almost wanted to offer Keith a boon for making this, but it was a gift, so that would be insulting.

A gift made just for him. He took a sip of the hot beverage, and it was like calm and clarity washed over him like a wave. It was so overwhelming that it brought tears to his eyes, and he had to sit down. _You are safe_ , it affirmed, wrapping him up like a sanctuary.

And in that moment he realized he was helplessly, hopelessly infatuated with the human witch that he’d spent so brief a time with. Shit.

 

* * *

 

Cold from the cement floor seeped into his palms and knees, and he kept his head bowed to hide the burn of shame across his face. This had gone beyond a simple menial task. Today, they had asked Shiro to be _furniture_. He knelt on the floor as a goblin used him as a footstool. This would have been humiliating enough on its own, but the group of Unseelie he was serving for the day were using him to make a _statement_.

From what he could gather, they were powerful gang leaders, in control of the flow of cash and goods between the realms. ‘Goods’ usually meant ‘drugs,’ but Shiro wasn’t interested in getting a closer look at any of the packages that changed hands in this particular warehouse. And apparently, they’d been shortchanged in some way. The goblin lounged on his makeshift throne of packing crates and knock-off rugs, his booted feet leaving filthy smudges across the back of Shiro’s shirt.

To have subjugated a Seelie high fae to such a degree was all the threat that the group of gwyllion needed to submit to the goblin, despite the fact that the mountain-dwelling goat women were far more powerful than a mere redcap.

“So you’ll be paying us what you owe, aye, with _interest_ ,” the goblin said, picking his teeth with a knife.

He flicked whatever he’d extracted from his hideous gums towards Shiro, and it splatted wetly against his face. He flinched, and earned a kick from the goblin.

“Footstools don’t move,” he hissed. “Perhaps I shoulda tied you down!”

Shiro swallowed down the pride that made him want to rip out the goblin’s throat for his disrespect. This was only a year and a day. He could endure it a year and a day. He stilled, although his lower lip was still trembling with rage. It was this pride and arrogance that got him into this mess in the first place. If only he’d been a little less inclined to open his mouth and let foolishness fall out, he wouldn’t be stuck letting a redcap treat him like refuse.

The experience was very poetic, though, in the classical heroes journey sort of way. A haughty prince, laid low by his own hubris, humbled by the harrowing quest back to his former glory, he regains his throne as a much more beloved and benevolent ruler. This was just what he had to put up with to fulfill centuries of tradition.

By the time Shiro was allowed to leave, he was sore and stiff and his stomach was gnawingly empty. He bought a skewer of spicy-smelling meat from one of the many street vendors on his way home, and a cup of sweet melon a few steps later when the spiciness was a bit more than he could handle. He rolled his shoulders, tilting his head towards the starlit sky as he breathed deeply to clear his nose of the foul smell of the warehouse. This wasn’t really so bad, he reasoned. If humiliation was the worst he had to bear, then he would bear it.

How naive he had been to think that humiliation was all the Unseelie had in store for him.

 

* * *

 

“What is this?”

“It’s a sword. Surely you know how to use it.”

Shiro scowled, gingerly accepting the weapon he was offered. “Of course I know how to use it.” He wasn’t fond of swords, after having one cleave his arm off, but he certainly knew what to do with one. “Why are you giving it to me?”

“Because where you’re going, you’ll need it.” The ogre who was his handler for the day grinned, showing off rot-brown teeth.

“Where I’m going…?” Shiro almost didn’t want to know the answer to that question, as he was shoved down a narrow hallway.

Somewhere, there was a muffled roar and pounding that made the walls shake. Some kind of machinery…? The floor gradually sloped downward, like a theater, or- Shiro drew close enough to make out the sounds better, and his stomach chilled with realization. An arena. The sound was a crowd cheering and stomping. This was a gladiatorial spectacle. And he was now a contestant.

It all made sense. A year and a day of servitude was so trivial for the boon he’d asked of her. Typically a tribute would be at least seven years, or a firstborn child! The reason it felt as though Haggar was offering so much for such a small price was because she never even intended to uphold her end of the bargain. He stared down at the sword in his hand. She wanted him to die in the process of fulfilling his agreement.

Shiro gritted his teeth, hefting the sword and feeling its weight. It was poorly made and not at all the right balance for his strength, but he’d make it work. This was _his_ hero's journey, this was his quest for redemption. He would survive it, no matter what.

The sound of the rowdy crowd surged all the louder when he emerged from the end of the tunnel into a makeshift hypogeum. He flinched at the increased sound and the bright lights, illuminating the dirty pit that was to serve as his battleground.

His opponent was already waiting for him, a barguest with dripping fangs and burning eyes, in the usual shape of a giant black dog. It snarled at Shiro, and he hefted the sword. His journey was not ending here, not today. Giant paws thudded against the dirty as the barguest charged him. It was obvious that this was to be a fight to the death.

Time blurred as Shiro narrowed his focus to survival. A barguest was a formidable enemy. It towered over him, and could easily throw him across the length of the arena with one swipe of a mighty paw, if the razor-sharp claws didn’t eviscerate him first. He had to make his size an advantage, not a detriment. He could dart between the limbs of the barguest to stab at its more vulnerable belly. He wasn’t as fast as the beast, but he was more agile. He had to exploit that for all it was worth if he wanted to stay alive.

The heavy scent of wet dog and sulfur filled Shiro’s nostrils as the barguest drew close. Nausea rolled over him but he ignored it, waiting until the very last moment to tuck and roll between the front limbs of the beast. He swung the sword as he stood, slicing open a ligament on the beast’s hind leg. Loud cheering from the audience mingled with the howl of rage and pain that the barguest let out. Blood splattered onto Shiro and the dirt beneath him. He slipped, his knees and hand muddy as he struggled to regain his footing quickly enough to escape the enraged beast.

Shiro had slowed the creature with the injury, but it wasn’t enough to take it down. The barguest rounded on him, now all the more intent on killing him. Shiro swallowed hard, turning to face the beast and once again wait for it to get close. Barguest might be large and powerful, but they weren’t especially intelligent. Shiro’s technique of letting it come close enough for him to escape between its legs wouldn’t work on anything smart enough to pick up on such a lazy tactic. Small mercies, Shiro supposed.

This time he stabbed upward as he darted underneath the barguest, aiming for the beast’s stomach. To Shiro’s dismay, the shoddy sword he’d been armed with wasn’t sufficient to administer a deep enough wound to actually kill the monster. It opened up a jagged cut, covering Shiro in even more blood. The dirt beneath was churned into a wet slurry. Heavy with mud and gore, Shiro wasn’t quick enough to escape the barguest in time.

He cried out as he was tossed aside by the beast swiping at him with a paw. Had he not cut into a hind leg, he surely would have been killed instantly as the barguest leapt onto him. But that injury caused the monster to stumble, allowing Shiro enough time to raise the sword that he’d miraculously maintained his grip on. As the barguest open its toothy jaws, he thrust it upward into its throat.

Shiro rolled away as the beast choked on its own blood. He got to his feet, putting as much distance between himself and his enemy as he could. Bracing himself against another attack, he turned to see that it wasn’t necessary. The barguest was done for. It collapsed, the neck wound spurting blood. Shiro looked away, vomiting into the dirt.

His ears buzzed with the rush of adrenaline, drowning out the cheering crowd. They were chanting and stomping, more excited for the bloodshed than any actual victory. The last thing Shiro remembered was seeing Haggar’s face up in the stands, her expression unreadable. Then his vision went black.

 

* * *

 

After he woke up on a makeshift cot somewhere in the many Unseelie hideaways, still covered in blood and filth, he was allowed to go home and rest. His body ached with countless bruises, but he hadn’t suffered any serious injuries. As he walked the maze of backstreets towards his high-end apartment, the sky opened up a torrential downpour. Shiro didn’t bother ducking under cover, letting the rain wash over him and clean off the worst of the grime that had dried on his hair and skin. Already, the events of the fight were beginning to fade in his memory, blocked out by the adrenaline-fueled haze he’d been operating under. He knew that the memories were likely to resurface in his nightmares, but for now he appreciated the relief of forgetting.

When he got home, soaked through and shivering, he brewed a cup of the tisane while he ran a hot bath. His head cleared of the lingering fog at the scent of the tisane, and with resounding clarity Shiro realized that this was going to be his life for a year, or for as long as he could stay alive in the barbaric fighting matches. He sank into the bathwater with the mug of tisane clutched between his hands. He had trapped himself into a year of fighting for his life.

 

* * *

 

**K E I T H**

 

Keith took shelter under the awning of a bookshop as veritable buckets of rain began to fall in the middle of his delivery route. He found himself feeling grateful that his beloved bike was in the shop for some routine maintenance. Navigating the narrow streets when they were slick with rain was always a nightmare. With nothing to do but wait out the rainstorm, Keith ducked into the little bookstore.

It was small and cozy, and the halfie behind the counter glanced up as he entered.

“Sorry, just getting out of the rain.”

The halfie shrugged, turning back to the book he was reading.

Since he was stuck, though, he might as well browse the selection. It was a typical mixture of ancient-looking tomes that were probably forgeries, worn human paperbacks, and some genuine fae books that could very well be weird erotica for all Keith knew, since they were written in a language he couldn’t read.

Before the rain let up, he ended up buying three paperback books - and one fake tome that happened to look pretty - shoving them in his satchel as he headed back out to finish his deliveries. He’d definitely regret the weight of the books in his bag soon, but he couldn’t justify spending so long in a bookstore and not buying anything.

As if it hadn’t just been deluging, the sun was bright in the sky as he resumed his task. The wet streets steamed in the heat, and Keith tied up his hair to get it off his neck. He turned down a blind alley to take a shortcut between streets, disturbing a cat who was snoozing inside a sideways trash can.

The sleek black cat darted down the alley, looking back at Keith reproachfully for having interrupted his nap.

Keith fished a package of cat treats from his satchel, kneeling down to offer a few to the cat in apology. It was always wise to make reparations with any offended cat, magical or not. The cat accepted the offering, and even rubbed against his hand to be petted.

“Good kitty,” he murmured.

The cat looked up at him, and his eyes lit with an unnatural blue light.

“Be alert, little witch,” a voice said, seeming to come from the cat, although his mouth didn’t move. “You have unknowingly crossed paths with someone involved in dark forces.”

The blue light faded, and once again it was just a street cat. Shaken, Keith stood, thinking back to the spilled tarot cards, and Shiro.

Dark forces sounded awfully sinister, especially if it was something so important that a spirit possessed a cat to warn Keith about it. His measly protection spell mixed into the tisane seemed almost embarrassing now.

He needed the help of a much more powerful witch if he wanted to protect Shiro. He needed to go to Allura. 


	5. INTERLUDE

_Drunk on dandelion wine and the wild abandon of Midsummer, Prince Takashi Shirogane of the High Seelie Court felt invincible. In many ways, he was. Untouchable by age and decay, susceptible to only the touch of iron. And who would dare to wield any kind of weapon against one such as himself?_

_The halls of the Court were crowded with lights and laughter. Creatures of all kinds frolicked and danced under the bright leaves. Here and there was a human, their eyes vacant as they were overwhelmed by the glory that was the Court at Midsummer. Undoubtedly when they finally stumbled back to the land over the hill they would be irrevocably changed, and divorced from the world that had moved on far beyond the time it felt like they were gone. But wasn’t the adventure worth far more than anything they could have experienced in the mortal realm?_

_Shiro even saw a few Unseelie creatures, hapless interlopers; or perhaps held against their will. He didn’t know or particularly care. He flitted from one pleasure to another, here a drink, there a passionate kiss on sweet lips, a dance with one lovely individual, and then another. He made the circuit of the endlessly spiralling ballroom beneath the golden sun and fresh leaves until he was dizzy with it and everything blurred together into a meaningless tangle of colors and sounds._

_He stumbled away from the thick of it, needing a moment to clear his head and breathe air that wasn’t heady with perfumes and spices. The music and laughter faded as he left the court behind, into empty woods that gradually became more and more wild. Darkness descended as the unnatural sunlight of the court lost its power so far from the epicenter._

_It was quiet and peaceful, and Shiro felt his intoxication recede slightly. He breathed deep the fresh air. As much as he reveled in the chaos of the party so too he savored the silence and solitude. For all he loved the pleasures of the court, sometimes he just craved privacy and seclusion. It all got too much. He couldn’t blame anyone for desiring him, of course. His beauty was renowned and beyond compare. But to be so sought after could be a bit exhausting. He wasn’t insatiable like some kind of beast._

_Was it so wrong to want to be cherished, perhaps? Treated as more than just an object of desire?_

_“Well, well, well, what have we here?”_

_The glissando voice broke through Shiro’s reverie, and he found himself in a small clearing. Light was solely provided by a small fire in the center, and he realized with a small vein of fear that it was a New Moon. Directly inverse of the power he gained from Midsummer, the New Moon weakened him. He was suspended between the two._

_Glancing around, he discovered the source of the voice. An Unseelie fae, leaned against a tree trunk in a pose of careless relaxation. Four more appeared out of the darkness, all of a kind with silvery-white hair and deep violet eyes. High fae, then. It almost hurt to look at them too long, so sharp and terrible was their beauty. A part of Shiro desired them in a way. Forbidden fruit of the most dangerous sort._

_“You’re a long way from home, pretty pixie,” one of the fae said, not the first speaker._

_Her fangs flashed briefly as she grinned._

_“What brings you all the way out here?” The first speaker again, the only male of the group._

_“Are you lost?” Another added in a cheerful tone, tossing her hair over her shoulder._

_“You should leave,” said yet another._

_The last one was silent, her eyes hidden by the shadow of her cowl._

_“Oh no, stay a while,” the first one said, straightening as he pushed away from the tree to approach Shiro._

_It was clear he was the leader of this little group. Perhaps a prince, like Shiro himself._

_“Seeking darker pleasures than what your court can offer?” he asked, lightly touching Shiro’s chin with one finger._

_Shiro gazed into his eyes, feeling just a bit beguiled._

_“I was just taking a walk,” he managed._

_The group of Unseelie laughed._

_“Just taking a walk, he says!” The leader proclaimed, turning to the four behind him. “The prince of the court himself on Midsummer, and he takes a walk.”_

_The tallest of the women and the cheerful one both laughed. The other two stayed silent._

_“Just like I am just enjoying a campfire on the New Moon,” the leader continued, his attention swivelling back to Shiro. “Now, the whole truth, please.”_

_“That is the truth,” Shiro said simply. “What is it that you are truly doing?”_

_That caused the Unseelie to harden his expression as he dropped Shiro’s chin. “Perhaps I am waiting for a morsel such as yourself to fall into my net.”_

_Shiro let out a short laugh. “You know as well as I that I am hardly a morsel. I’m not some backwater brownie, easily lured by a pretty face.”_

_The Unseelie grinned. “But you find my face pretty.”_

_Shiro narrowed his eyes. “And you do not feel the same about mine?”_

_He hissed at that, baring his fangs. “I could have countless lovers as fair as you, do not flatter yourself.”_

_Shiro smiled. “It is our nature to desire that which we cannot have.”_

_The dandelion wine was singing in his veins, the energy of Midsummer thrumming through his body. A sword hung at his hip, and the Unseelie fae was armed, as well. He forgot all about the new moon, dismissed that he was outnumbered. He was invincible. He was a fool._

_“Let us make a wager,” he said. “If you can defeat me in combat, you may do whatever you wish with me.”_

_The Unseelie raised one silvery brow. “Whatever I wish? A bold promise to make, prince. Are you so confident that you would agree to such terms?”_

_“I could defeat you with my right hand tied behind my back.”_

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The rest of the fic will be posted this evening!


	6. V

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please check out the fantastic art for this chapter on Marissa's [tumblr.](http://myssiesart.tumblr.com/post/177596779333/im-really-excited-to-share-my-work-for-the%22) The soft watercolor and warm atmosphere captured my imagination of Shiro and Keith's interactions exactly, I'm so thrilled at how beautifully it was brought to life!

The arena was not a daily occurence, to Shiro’s great relief. It was back to menial labor and the usual humiliation the next time Haggar called for him. A week, and then another, of the simple drudgery was enough to lower his hackles, but he wasn’t naive enough to believe he wouldn’t be thrown back into the ring ever again.

On the third week his suspicions were proved correct, as he was once again handed a sword and told to fight. This time he was allowed a shield as well, and the sword was better quality. Shiro suspected that his previous victory had been entirely unplanned for, but now he was actually being equipped to win. Good. He planned to keep on winning. He tested the weight of the shield. It wasn’t the best, but it was more than what he’d had last time. But the opponent he was now facing wasn’t some instinct-driven beast, it was a mountain troll with a massive club and feet the size of an average minivan. Luckily, size and strength didn’t fully compensate for the fact that he was slow and clumsy. As dangerous as the club was, it was actually a bit too heavy for the troll. It took him a great deal of effort to lift off the ground once he had swung it. Shiro climbed up his arm and slit his throat.

The cheers of the crowd were deafening.

It became a pattern - a week or so of simple servitude, and then the arena. They’d taken to calling him ‘Champion,’ and he was a crowd favorite. He always faced enemies bigger and more ferocious, and he took them down every time. Being a scrappy underdog overrode the fact that he was a Seelie high fae, it was enough to make the mostly-Unseelie audience love him.

Time blurred together as the weeks passed. Shiro always walked away from a fight with nothing worse than scrapes and bruises.

He should have known that his luck would run out eventually.

His weapon was a proper broadsword this time, balanced for his own hand. The sturdy shield he’d been given had shattered after three strikes from the spiked flail his opponent wielded. He was pretty sure his wrist was broken from the force, and he held his left arm close to his chest to protect it. He managed to block another strike with his blade, but the impact sent him sprawling.

Shiro’s head pounded, amplified by the roar of the crowd. They were hungry for blood, eager to see death played out before their eyes. He slowly raised himself up on one hand, blinking to clear his double vision. The crowd grew louder in anticipation.

He would give them what they wanted, but it wasn’t going to be his own death. Not here, not today. Gritting his teeth, he tightened his grip on his sword.

His opponent gave a rasping laugh.

“Look at you, little pixie!” she taunted, flashing her fangs. “So eager to face your own demise!”

She was some kind of troll, or ogre, but enhanced with Haggar’s dark magic, Shiro couldn’t really tell which. She towered over him and her skin was like stone, but every monster had a weak spot. He just had to stay alive long enough to find it.

Easier said than done, but that was his only option. Fight or die.

His head was still buzzing, he must have struck the ground harder than he thought. He blinked rapidly, his vision swimming slightly. He needed to end this quickly, before his head injury gave him even more of a handicap.

What could break through stone?

Through the blur in his vision and the bright lights of the arena, Shiro’s attention caught upon the spikes of the flail. They sparkled under the light, reflecting a rainbow of colors. Diamond. The spikes were made out of diamond. He needed to get that flail away from the ogre so he could wield it against her. Which meant getting within striking range. One well-placed hit and he’d be a pulpy smear in the dirt. His head throbbed. He would be dead anyway if he didn’t make a move, so he might as well go down fighting.

Shiro charged at the ogre, sword at the ready. She swung her flail. The spikes caught his ribs and he cried out as he felt his flesh give way. But it was the opening he needed, and he jammed his blade between the chain links of the flail, wrenching it from her grip as he drove it deep into the dirt. The sword shattered from the strain, but he’d accomplished what he needed anyway.

The flail was far too heavy for him, and he was already weakening from blood loss, but he lifted it anyway. His focus narrowed. The crowd sounded like they were very far away. He was losing an awful lot of blood. He swung the flail.

Absently he amended the thought that his enemy was an ogre, as she’d clearly been a troll. Only trolls crumbled to dust and pebbles when they were slain. He coughed, and felt blood fly from his lips.

He was going to die.

Shiro squinted up at the arena, knowing suddenly that if he remained, he would not be patched up by Haggar. He didn’t want to die here.

He turned and fled.

 

* * *

 

The streets of Bordertown were even more confusing when delirious with pain and blood loss. Shiro could feel blood pulsing between his fingers from the wound on his side as he stumbled down the alley. Pain. So much pain. He hadn’t known he was able to still experience pain like this. Surely there was some kind of limit to what the pain one could feel in a lifetime. His vision blurred and swam, the edges of what he could see darkening as he neared unconsciousness.

He stumbled, and felt himself collide with something alive. Flinching, he tried to pull away, but hands caught his shoulders.

“Shiro?” a somewhat-familiar voice said, incredulous and heavy with concern.

Shiro blinked, a face swimming into view. Indigo eyes, dark hair, pierced ears.

“Keith?” he asked, his tongue unwieldy in his mouth.

“Yeah, yeah, it’s Keith,” the human assured him. “Stay with me, Shiro. I’m going to take care of you, okay?”

Shiro tried to reply, but he couldn’t get his lips to cooperate enough to form the words. The pain was fading, replaced by a strange lightness.

“Stay with me,” Keith repeated, wrapping surprisingly strong arms around his waist, and lifting him up.

The next thing Shiro knew, he was laying in a bed, staring at a ceiling he didn’t recognize. The sloped surface was comprised of exposed beams and rough plaster, bundles of drying herbs hung at intervals.

He attempted to sit up, and searing pain in his side prompted him to immediately lay back down.

“Oh, you’re awake.”

He knew that voice. Keith. Keith had found him when he’d come stumbling out of that warehouse, bleeding out from his injuries.

“Don’t try to move,” Keith said, hovering over him. “Your wounds were deep, and you lost a lot of blood. You’re lucky to be alive.”

“Thanks to you.” Shiro’s words slightly slurred as he continued to struggle with a heaviness in his tongue. “You’ve saved me again. Like a knight in shining armor.”

Keith shrugged, looking embarrassed. “I just was in the right place at the right time. Here, drink this.”

He pressed a straw to Shiro’s lips and he drank obediently, grimacing at the bitter taste.

“Well I know that’s something medicinal,” he said, coughing. “Nothing tastes that horrible unless it’s good for you.”

Keith laughed. “It’ll help your body replace the blood you’ve lost. You were fortunate that no major organs were damaged. I’m a witch, not a surgeon.”

Shiro’s estimation of Keith rose once again. Healing was a considerable skill. To bring an elf back from the brink of death? Not many humans could manage that.

“I owe you another debt,” he said.

“Don’t worry about that right now,” Keith said dismissively. “I’ll keep it on hand in case I ever need a faerie favor.”

Shiro chuckled before wincing as the motion caused pain to flare in his side again. “Bold. Going to hold that over my head?”

“I just might,” Keith said with a crooked smile. “You never know when having a high fae on hand could prove useful. Speaking of on hand…” Keith lightly took Shiro’s right hand. “Where did this come from?”

He was frowning slightly as he examined the limb, and Shiro self-consciously pulled away.

“It was… a gift,” he said hesitantly.

“A gift,” Keith repeated.

His expression was unreadable and Shiro’s discomfort increased.

“A gesture of good faith,” he amended. “That the rest of my body will be restored in time.”

“I see.”

Keith’s expression didn’t change, and he turned away.

“I need to get back to my delivery route; you should sleep. The potion I gave you will work better while your body is at rest.”

Shiro didn’t feel sleepy, but there was a bone-deep weariness throughout his body. He nodded and settled more deeply into the bed. He belatedly realized that this was the only one in the room that was clearly Keith’s apartment. He was in Keith’s bed. The thought made him flush, and he tried to not notice the way the bedding smelled, because that was a dangerous train of speculation.

Keith paused in the doorway of the room. “Shiro… I know this is not my business, but may I ask who the ‘gift’ is from?”

“Haggar. She called herself Haggar.”

Keith was silent, and the door opened with a creak as he disappeared down the stairwell.

Shiro was unsettled by Keith’s reaction, but exhaustion overwhelmed him before he could think too much on it. He felt into a deep, dreamless sleep.

 

* * *

 

The room was dark when Shiro finally awoke, telling him that it was long past sunset. But he was alone. Well, not quite alone. Silhouetted by the pale moonlight through the window, a cat sat in the windowsill, staring at him.

“Hello there,” he called to the cat in a hoarse voice, his throat dry.

The cat trilled and bounded over to the bed, purring loudly as she rubbed against him. He obligingly scratched her chin and ears.

“Have you been watching over me?” he asked.

The cat just blinked at him slowly.

Shiro groaned as he carefully sat up. He still felt like he’d fallen down a cliff and then was kicked by a horse, both things he’d actually experienced in his lifetime, but he was no longer in danger of dropping dead at any moment. It took far more effort than it should have, but he managed to summon a small will’o’wisp, illuminating the dark room with its flickering blue light.

An orange paw tried to bat at the ball of light, and Shiro gently pushed the cat away.

Keith’s apartment was small but cozy, with evidence of his livelihood covering every available surface. Shiro felt like a peeping Tom just being there. Something about being in Keith’s living space was just too intimate.

The cat huffed. Like her owner, she clearly wanted Shiro to get more rest. But he couldn’t continue taking up Keith’s space like this. Provided it wasn’t too far of a walk, he could get himself home to go back to sleep in his own bed.

With the will’o’wisp to light his way and the cat dogging his every step, Shiro slowly crossed the room. He had to duck his head under the lowest part of the roof, and even more under the bundles of drying herbs. By the time he reached the door, he was out of breath. Maybe he couldn’t make the trip home.

While he was gathering his strength to conquer the stairs on the other side of the door, he heard footfalls coming up them. He stepped back just in time for Keith to swing the door open. Clearly surprised to come face-to-face with Shiro, the witch stumbled back.

“What are you doing out of bed?” he asked.

The cat meowed, probably communicating with Keith, rotten snitch that she was.

“Were you trying to leave?” Keith demanded.

“I-”

Shiro felt as though he was a child again, getting scolded by a nanny.

“I was, but apparently I’m not anymore,” he admitted, chagrined.

“I didn’t use my most powerful potions on you just for you to drop dead on the street because you’re apparently an idiot.”

Keith’s grip on his bicep was like iron as he guided him back to bed.

“I felt like I was intruding, especially with you not here.”

“Well, I’m here now.”

Keith practically shoved Shiro into bed before lighting some candles.

Grateful, Shiro extinguished his will’o’wisp.

“Shiro, you are welcome to my space, whenever you need to be here, for any reason,” Keith said, meeting Shiro’s eyes from across the room.

Humbled, Shiro nodded. An open invitation to Keith’s private dwelling was incredibly generous.

“Are we friends now?” Shiro asked before he could bite his tongue against the words.

Keith looked briefly startled, but then his expression softened. “Yes, of course.”

He dragged a chair away from his work table, settling onto it backwards with his arms draped over the back.

“As your friend, I am obligated to be concerned about your wellbeing,” he said. “I need to ask how you got that injury.”

Shiro hesitated. “It’s complicated.”

Just telling Keith the name of his benefactor had caused the other man to shutter his expression worryingly, he didn’t want to produce the whole story of his foolish decision to trust the witch Haggar. He knew it had been a mistake, but he’d done it anyway out of desperation. How could he have foreseen that servitude would entail fighting for his life?

“I’ve got time,” Keith said, before stifling a yawn.

“You’re tired, and I’m taking up your bed.” Shiro seized upon the opportunity to escape the conversation he didn’t want to have.

Keith held up a hand. “Don’t even. Coffee exists, I’ll be fine. You don’t have to tell me everything, Shiro. But I patched you up, I deserve to know how you got hurt.”

Shiro’s shoulders slumped. Keith was right. The witch had saved his life, he wasn’t in a position to deny him anything.

“I have made a terrible, terrible mistake,” he confessed softly. “I’ve entered into a contract that I cannot break for a year and a day. I am sworn to obey Haggar’s every command.”

Keith was silent as Shiro gave him a bare-bones account of finding Haggar, making the agreement, his servitude, and then the arena fights.

“I knew if I stayed, she would have let me bleed out,” he finished. “So I ran. It was just luck that I found you.”

“Just luck,” Keith echoed, his eyes distant as he fingered a cord hanging around his neck.

There was a new charm there, alongside the amethyst. It pulsed with an unfamiliar magical energy, one much more powerful than Keith’s.

“I don’t believe in luck,” he said. His expression hardened, and he met Shiro’s gaze.

“You’re staying here until you’ve fully recovered.”

“But if Haggar sends for me-”

“She won’t,” Keith assured him, total confidence in his voice. “So long as you are here, it will be as if you don’t even exist.”

 

* * *

 

**K E I T H**

 

Allura was a rare not-actually-only-half halfie. While humans had no problem with romancing a halfie, and obviously fae thought nothing of hooking up with full humans, halfies were seen as something shameful to the fae. Nonetheless, Allura’s fae father married her halfie mother, and produced a three-quarters-fae and wholly witch child. She had more magic in her pinkie toe than Keith had in his entire body, on a good night, with a strong breeze from the Realm.

They’d met a few years after Keith came to Bordertown, through the trans-witch network. The name referred both to the fact that it was inter-witch-to-witch, _and_ that everyone involved was transgender. Something about the inherently transformative nature of defying the societal structure of assigning gender based on genitals lent itself to being magical, because the ratio of trans witches was remarkably high. It felt good to be part of a majority in at least one area of his life.

Keith and Allura had gotten along about as well as oil and water in the beginning, for various reasons, but now there was no one in Bordertown he trusted more.

Being a very powerful witch came with an equally busy schedule, but Allura always made time for him, no matter how frazzled she was. She’d whipped up a protective charm in half an hour the first time Keith came to her with his Shiro dilemma, and she set aside time for him yet again when he let her know there was an update to the situation.

A cup of tea was already steaming on Allura’s table when he entered her cozy apartment, and he knew without even asking that it was his favorite strawberry-pomegranate blend. Allura was busy with a scale and some crystals, and she motioned for him to sit.

Her bright white braids were threaded with gold and iridescent ribbons, and they were tied in two long pigtails with a knot on top that reminded Keith of a cartoon he had watched as a kid. It was also completely different from the short candy pink curls she’d been rocking a few weeks ago when he’d gone to her for the charm. He could never tell if her rapidly changing hairstyles was fae magic or the human sort of magic girls with her hair type could conjure.

“So, how did the charm work?” Allura asked once she was finished weighing the crystals and packaging them up in little velvet bags.

“Um.” Keith set down his cup of tea. “It worked a little too well. It sent Shiro straight into my arms.”

“Oh?” Allura waggled her eyebrows and the pointy tips of her ears wiggled as well.

“Not like that!” Keith exclaimed.

What was it with people wanting him and Shiro to be romantically involved?

“I mean literally, he was bleeding out from this giant wound and I just happened to catch him when he collapsed,” he explained. “I was able to patch him up, but now I know for certain what kind of danger he’s in. He’s made a deal with the witch Haggar.”

Allura’s expression immediately darkened. “Haggar. Keith, she is an _incredibly_ powerful Unseelie witch. Stronger than me, certainly. And Shiro is… well he was a high fae prince. He knew what he was getting into. Are you certain you want to get involved in that kind of situation for his sake?”

Keith stared at the rippling red surface of his tea. Going toe-to-toe with a witch who could blast him into oblivion was not high on his list of things he wanted to do, but everything in him was saying he needed to help Shiro.

“Yes. I am.”

Allura sighed softly. “Then I will do what I can to assist you.”

 


	7. VI

Shiro stared at his reflection in the sole mirror in his home. New scars littered his chest and shoulders, each one a reminder of just how far he’d sunk into this mess. What had been revulsion was now replaced with resignation. He absently touched the scar on his side. It was the most faded, evidence of just how skilled Keith was in the healing arts.

His counter was littered with poultices and potions from the human witch, but it was never quite the same as when Keith applied them himself. It was fine, though, Shiro could handle it. He was surprising himself with just how much he was able to handle, these days. The soft, pampered prince he’d been when he’d foolishly challenged the Unseelie was long gone. The fae in the mirror was hardened by his trials and possessing an awful lot more wisdom.

He still hated the scars on his face for reminding him of his past folly, but the ones on his body didn’t bother him nearly as much. The difference was that he’d _earned_ these, through valiance and strife; by triumphing over his enemies. These scars were marks of victory instead of failure.

After his brush with death, Shiro had spent a week hiding out at Keith’s before the charm of protection was at risk of being breached should Haggar start to search for him.

_“You had a protection charm made on my behalf?”_

_Keith looked embarrassed, touching the sparkling pink pendant hanging around his neck._

_“I was worried about you,” he admitted. “And with good reason, apparently. This is probably the only thing that kept you alive. You’re going to need something a lot more potent if you’re going to survive the rest of your indentureship.”_

So they’d gone back to Allura.

Shiro had never felt quite so intimidated in the presence of a halfie before. Magic radiated off her like starlight, and he almost wanted to bow to her.

He told her so, the words tumbling out of him in his flustered panic before he could clamp them down. Becoming a hapless blabbermouth in the presence of beautiful people was becoming a trend for him, apparently. In the Realm, he’d been the very picture of suave elegance. Now, if Keith smiled at him a certain way, he practically choked on his own tongue.

Allura had appreciated the flattery, at least, so it was worth his embarrassment. It never hurt to flatter a witch.

_“We can make the protection piggyback off your agreement,” she explained. “That way we are using Haggar’s own magic against her, essentially.’_

  
_“Like a retroactive addendum to the contract,” Keith said, realization dawning on his face._

_“Precisely.”_

_“When I agreed to her terms, being granted what I was owed upon completion was an implicit part of the bargain,” Shiro said with a nod as he picked up on what the two witches were discussing. “The bargain cannot be executed if I’m not alive. Protection from harm is already part of it.”_

_“Exactly,” Keith and Allura harmonized._

_“We’ll just be giving that a little boost,” Allura pronounced, getting out crystals and chalk._

And it had worked. As he returned to the cycle of servitude and the arena, there were tight scrapes, narrow misses, and of course a myriad of scars, but never again did he come so close to cheating death as he had in the fight with the troll.

The rage on Haggar’s face ‘fueled him.’

Shiro was pretty sure he was using that phrase correctly.

He’d picked up a lot of strange slang lately, and most of the time he mangled the usage terribly; much to the amusement of Keith and his friends.

He hadn’t really intended to get absorbed into Keith’s social circle, it just sort of… happened. After the first week spent recovering in Keith’s apartment, his own seemed empty and desolate. When he’d first arrived in Bordertown, the seclusion was a blissful relief from the crowded court. Being a prince had always been a bit stifling. Of course he loved all that the position had allowed him. Wealth, power, influence - anything he could wish for provided for him whenever he desired. Being in Bordertown was _work_. Not just his servitude to Haggar, but he’d also had to take up a few odd jobs here and there. Most of Bordertown operated on the barter system, but the fancier neighborhoods still expected coin. His pockets upon leaving the Realm had been deep, but not endless.

Maybe that was why he felt more and more out of his place in his austere apartment. And Keith’s dwelling was much closer to the scummy warehouses that the Unseelie used for their gang dealings and underground fighting operation. His feet just seemed to lead him there on their own. True to his word that his home was open to Shiro whenever he wanted to drop by, Keith never seemed to mind Shiro’s presence.

It became routine for Shiro to spend most evenings on Keith’s battered red couch, eating fistfuls of popcorn and, when something called ‘Netflix’ was willing to work, appreciating the human art form that was film. _Moana_ moved him to tears. Other nights they’d sit in companionable silence while Keith mixed up potions and tonics, Shiro relaxing with the cat, Cherry, on his lap.

“How old were you, when you came here?” Shiro asked curiously one night.

“Sixteen, of course,” Keith said, like it were obvious. “Isn’t everyone, when they run away?”

Shiro nodded slightly. Sixteen was the age for stories to start.

“Did you have a wicked stepmother who wanted to cut out your heart?” he asked in a teasing tone.

Keith laughed. “Me? No. I’m not so delusional to believe that my beauty could drive anyone to homicide.”

Shiro quietly disagreed with that statement, but he chose not to voice it.

The witch snagged some popcorn from the shared bowl, offering Cherry a piece. She crunched it delicately. “I left for other... irreconcilable differences. Sometimes parents just… resent that they brought children into the world. And it’s not like a changeling, you can’t give it back when it’s not what you expected it to be. So I found my way here. It was tough at first, but I’m really happy now.”

“You know, despite everything… I’m kind of happy here, too,” Shiro admitted. “I’ve actually been thinking that I might not go back.”

Keith nearly overturned the bowl of popcorn. “But… everything you’ve been doing. You gave a year of your life to an evil witch for the ability to go back home.”

_Home_. That word didn’t really suit the Realm any longer.

So he shrugged. “I won’t mind having an unscarred appearance again,” he acknowledged. “But what is that phrase that you humans have? ‘Home is where the heart is’? The Realm isn’t where my heart belongs. Going back there will just remind me of everything I used to be and the foolish decisions I made. Being in Bordertown? It’s made me a better man.” He lightly nudged Keith’s shoulder. “ _You_ have made me a better man. Besides, I would miss you.”

Keith ducked his head, but not before Shiro caught sight of his small, pleased smile, and his chest swelled. Maybe, once he was no longer so disfigured, he could try to woo Keith properly.

“Oh, hey, the wind shifted,” Keith said, his attention flicking to the small television in the corner. “Wanna watch _Moana_ again?”

“Absolutely.”

 

* * *

 

Spending so much time with Keith also meant being inducted into his group of friends, which was yet another level of culture shock for Shiro. There was Lance, who seemed to be a full fae, some kind of South American water spirit. He worked as an actor at The Magic Lantern, and would single-handedly enact scenes from films for them if ‘Netflix’ cut out halfway through watching something. Then there was Hunk, a halfie who was magic in the kitchen _and_ with engines. The spellbox that ran Keith’s bike had been built by him, and when Shiro praised how well-designed it was, Hunk promised to bake him cookies every single day for a week. Finally there was Pidge, fully human like Keith, but with an innate ability to make technology and magic flow smoothly together. Even on days with a strong magical wind from the Realm that made most human technology go haywire, Pidge often could get electronic devices up and running. She also was equally in love with _Moana_ , and more than once movie night turned into a singalong.

Shiro was learning far more about the modern human world than he ever expected to, and settling comfortably into the fabric of Bordertown. This place had become home to him. With Cherry on his lap, sandwiched between Pidge and Hunk, Lance sprawled out on the floor while Keith sat at his desk finishing up a fresh batch of potions, he was more content than he’d ever been in the Realm.

“Guys, I’m bored, we should go dancing,” Lance remarked as Keith joined him on the worn rug.

“All you ever suggest is going dancing,” Pidge complained, chucking a piece of popcorn at him.

He caught it in his mouth and gave her a thumbs up. “Not true! Sometimes I suggest going to slam poetry nights in the park.”

Everyone groaned. Shiro guessed that Lance was the only one who enjoyed slam poetry.

“But seriously, all we ever do is sit around and watch movies,” Lance continued. “If I hear the _You’re Welcome_ song one more time, I’m gonna scream. We need to get out of here.”

“Nobody else really likes dancing, though,” Keith said, putting his feet on Lance’s stomach.

Lance made a face and pushed them off. Keith ignored him and put his feet right back on.

“Oh! There’s a food truck festival happening in Lilac Square,” Hunk exclaimed, rummaging in his pocket to procure a crumpled flier. “That could be fun!”

“Hunk, you always think something with food would be fun,” Pidge pointed out.

“And he’s always right,” Lance said, tickling the bottom of Keith’s foot and dodging his attempt to slap his hand away. “Shiro, you down for food trucks?”

“Will there be Thai food?” he asked hopefully.

“Oh yeah. There will definitely be Thai food.”

 

* * *

 

When Shiro saw the crowded streets, apprehension curled up his spine. Keith’s hand was immediately on his arm, lightly squeezing.

He turned to see the witch giving him a reassuring smile.

“No one knows you here,” he said, leaning close to Shiro’s ear. “No one is expecting anything from you.”

It was almost like he’d taken a long draught of Keith’s anti-anxiety tisane. Calm spread through him, and he managed to give him a smile in return.

“Come on, let’s get you some Thai food.”

Shiro let Keith steer him through the crowds. No one paid them any mind, and he found himself relaxing further as they wove their way between people laughing, talking, and eating. Fae mixed with humans and halfies. Children were carried on the shoulders of their parents, and pixies flitted overhead, just out of reach of the chubby hands of those toddlers. The atmosphere was entirely different than anything he’d every experienced in the realm. It was warm, and welcoming, and he felt safe.

Keith ordered for both of them, insisting that it was his treat, and Shiro countered by saying then he would buy them both dessert. Lance, Hunk, and Pidge were nowhere to be seen by the time they got their cartons of food. Keith just shrugged when Shiro asked if they should look for them.

“We’ll run into them again eventually,” he said, leading him over to an empty patch of curb to sit and eat.

Food was more important than talking, and they lapsed into silence as they dug into the cartons. Shiro ordered something different than what he’d gotten at the restaurant, but he was enjoying it just as much.

“This is a lot different from the last time we ate Thai food together,” Keith commented once his food was halfway gone.

“Yes, I actually know what it is this time,” Shiro replied with a smile.

Keith laughed, elbowing him. “Not what I meant! It’s just funny how we crossed paths coincidentally, and it’s led us here. Being friends.”

“I never thought I’d be grateful for a crazed cosmic chihuahua.”

They finished their meal in more comfortable silence, watching the ebb and flow of the crowd. Someone was passing out balloons in fantastical shapes, as many children and not a few adults walked past with the creations tucked under their arms. Couples held hands, sharing bites of powdery dough or brightly colored spun sugar. Shiro glanced at Keith, who was licking sauce off his fingers in a very inelegant manner. His nails today were a bright red that darkened to black at the tips. He wanted to kiss him.

“What?” Keith asked when he caught him staring.

“You’ve got…” Shiro gestured towards his own face. “Sauce. On your cheek. Here, let me…”

He gently wiped the smudge away with a napkin.

“Thanks.” Keith’s smile was soft and heartfelt.

Shiro’s chest squeezed almost painfully. This was like no infatuation he’d ever felt before. Keith was lovely, certainly, but it was so much more than that. He was smart and earnest and honest and Shiro wanted nothing more than to make him happy. His own feelings were irrelevant. Keith had already done so much for him. Of course he owed him something in return - but it was more than that. It wasn’t just an exchange or a balance. His heart’s desire was truly to give Keith happiness. Even if that meant he wasn’t a part of it.

But the way Keith was smiling at him gave Shiro hope that maybe Keith enjoyed his company just as much.

“So, dessert?” Keith asked, standing and gathering their empty containers. “What do you want?”

“You pick,” Shiro said. “I chose dinner.”

Keith hummed, glancing around. “This way.”

Shiro’s eyes widened as Keith grabbed his hand to lead him towards whatever had caught his fancy. It was just sensible, obviously, the streets were crowded and he didn’t want to get separated when Shiro owed him dessert.

But that didn’t explain why Keith flexed his fingers, tangling them with Shiro’s in a gesture that was significantly less practical and looked an awful like the other couples who were holding hands simply because they wanted to be connected to each other.

Keith didn’t let go, even once they received their dessert from a small cart nestled between two larger vendors. It was ice cream, but in an odd shade of green. The cone was soft, airy bubbles of dough shaped around the frozen treat. Keith explained that it was matcha, a kind of green tea. The flavor wasn’t anything like tea in Shiro’s opinion, but it _was_ delicious.

He was very grateful for Haggar’s ‘gift’ that allowed him to hold Keith’s hand while also licking his ice cream cone.

A sudden and loud bang overhead startled Shiro, and he flinched. Keith immediately squeezed his hand.

“It’s just fireworks,” he assured him. “Look.”

Shiro turned his gaze upwards as Keith indicated, just in time to see a brightly colored explosion in the sky. Smaller, sparkling explosions rained down, and he realized it was just like the opening scene with the castle in all the Disney movies. He had no idea those were actually real!

“They’re beautiful,” he murmured, watching as another multicolored shower lit up the sky.

Keith grinned at him. “Yeah,” he agreed. “Come on, let’s go find a more open area to sit and watch! Maybe we’ll find the others.”

Shiro kept his eyes on the sky as he let Keith lead him towards the nearby park. He never let go of his hand for the entire rest of the evening.

 

* * *

 

**K E I T H**

 

“We all saw that,” Pidge said, nudging Keith with her elbow.

“Saw what?” Keith replied, feigning obliviousness.

“You and Shiro,” she said, rolling her eyes. “ _Holding hands_.”

“It didn’t mean anything,” Keith dismissed. “I just didn’t want to lose him, crowded places stress him out.”

Pidge looked unconvinced. “You don’t hold hands like that just to keep track of someone in a crowd, Keith. Just admit that you like him already.”

Keith sighed, slumping deeper into the couch cushion. It was just him and Pidge, everyone else having gone home. He suspected that Pidge had stayed behind purposely to torment him about his hopeless crush on the faerie prince. “I don’t want to put it into words, that’ll make it real. And real feelings are a good way to get hurt. He’s gonna leave and go back to the Realm when the deal is complete.”

Pidge frowned. “Hasn’t he said he wants to stay? He seems to really like it here. He seems to really like you.”

“He says that now, but I know his type,” Keith said. “Besides - what if he knew the truth about me? I don’t think he’d feel quite so enamored anymore.”

“You’re definitely overthinking this,” Pidge argued. “Shiro is a good guy! So what if he’s high fae? He’s been hanging out with us for months now and never once acted pretentious or anything like that. He sings Disney songs with us, Keith! Being in Bordertown has totally converted him. I think you’re just scared of commitment.”

Keith groaned, rubbing his face. “Maybe,” he admitted. “But can you blame me? I didn’t exactly have the best example of a loving relationship growing up.”

“So what? You’re not your parents, Keith. You’re not going to just walk out on somebody because things got hard.”

“How can you be so sure?”

Pidge settled a hand on Keith’s arm. “Because you’ve been one of the best friends anyone could ever ask for. You’ve always been there for us, no matter what. Even when you were like, super awkward about it at first. You’re not going to abandon us. _Or_ Shiro.”

Keith pulled Pidge into a grateful hug until she squeaked in protest of the tightness of his embrace and pulled away.

“Okay,” he agreed. “But I’m still not confessing to him. Not yet, anyway. I’m gonna wait until the time is right.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Would you believe I planned the _Moana_ references before Josh Keaton made that 'You're Welcome' video?


	8. VII

Keith’s apartment had become so familiar to Shiro that being back in his own place felt like visiting the home of a stranger. It smelled only of cleaning products and old books, and he hadn’t done anything to personalize the apartment in any way. It was like a hotel, a transient place with no soul.

“I haven’t seen much of you lately,” Romelle commented one rare afternoon that they actually were in the apartment at the same time.

A late night serving Haggar in her creepy laboratory had him sleeping well past morning, and he woke to find Romelle already at work, dusting a shelf of knickknacks

Shiro didn’t know why he’d kept those; they weren’t his. They’d been in the apartment when he moved in and just added to the atmosphere that he was intruding on a space that didn’t belong to him. He didn’t even particularly like them, but he idea of having empty shelves was somehow worse. An errant fantasy of filling them with jars of Keith’s herbs and other ingredients popped into his head. His apartment was large enough for two people. Integrating Keith into his space would be so easy, so natural.

Romelle was staring at him expectantly, and Shiro realized he’d fallen silent for an extended amount of time.

“Oh, yes,” he said belatedly. “I’ve been busy.”

“Uh-huh,” Romelle hummed. “ _And_ you’ve practically moved in with _Keith_.”

Shiro’s face heated up. “I- it’s just- he-,” he stammered. “Aside from you, he and his companions are the only people I really know here. We’ve… become friends.”

It was a weak excuse - after so much time, he could have easily curated a larger group of acquaintances. He’d stuck with Keith’s group because he chose to.

Romelle flicked the feather duster, giving him a knowing look. “You’d like to be more than _friends_.”

Shiro tried to protest, but the words wouldn’t come out; stifled by his inability to lie.

Romelle smirked, exultant in having cornered Shiro into revealing the truth. “You should just ask him out! I am quite confident he won’t say no.”

While that had originally been his worry, that was no longer on the forefront of Shiro’s mind. Now a different concern plagued him - what if Haggar found a way to use Keith against him? There was no way he could put him in danger like that. Just being such close friends with him was a risk. He knew how selfish and manipulative he had been as a prince of the realm, Haggar was undoubtedly even more devious.

“Perhaps,” Shiro said finally. “When the time is right.”

Romelle pouted and continued dusting. “Fine, fine. But when you two actually get together, you owe me.”

“Are you manipulating me into a bargain?”

Romelle’s eyes widened. “Oh! No! Nothing like that! It’s just… a human thing! Like a bet! I didn’t mean-” She paused when she realized Shiro was laughing. “Oh, that was a joke. I… don’t think I’ve ever heard you make a joke before.”

Back in the Realm, Shiro had been something of a prankster, but they’d always been of the sort that involved humiliation or harm to someone else. He wasn’t really prone to harmless jokes.

“I think Bordertown has been good for me,” he admitted.

He just needed to survive the remainder of his servitude with his soul and newfound humanity intact.

 

* * *

 

Perhaps it was the wisdom he’d acquired since coming to Bordertown, or some kind of magical premonition, but he sensed a shift in Haggar’s tactics before they came. She’d realized that throwing bigger and more dangerous enemies wasn’t doing anything other than endearing him to the giant crowds that filled the seats of the arena. Every time he took down a monster that towered over him, they’d chant ‘Champion!’ and cheer loud enough to make his ears ring. They had long since been rooting for him - he, a Seelie prince! - rather than rallying for his defeat. Vicious and bloodthirsty as they were, Shiro had developed an odd sort of affection for his doting fans. Having her makeshift court praise the worthless slave infuriated her.

So Haggar got crafty. She began pitting Shiro against enemies she knew could not hope to defeat him. Scrawny hobgoblins. Sharp-toothed pixies in ragtag armor. Even a few halfie, although they were of the sort that appeared to be mixed with the likes of Jenny Greenteeth or even ogres. Humans were… adventurous. The audience was less appreciative of his conquest over these opponents, and he didn’t blame them. It was not a worthy achievement, especially not after so many spectacular triumphs.

Shiro had felt no remorse in slaying leanhaum-shee or slaugh or capaill uisce. Malevolent spirits, they already had blood on their hands. It was a heroic gesture to do away with them. These enemies, though, while equally armed and armored, were not a fair fight. Before, he hadn’t felt like a killer. Now he was starting to. He could wash his hands until his skin was red and raw, but he still felt unclean.

Going over to Keith’s apartment high on the victory over a giant monster was one thing. But this guilt and shame wasn’t something he could bring into that place. He associated Keith’s cozy loft with peace and happiness. So once again he retreated to his own apartment. Spending more time there didn’t make the dissonant feeling that it wasn’t really his home disappear. If anything, it was even worse now that he’d gotten accustomed to a warmer refuge.

Romelle almost mentioned the fact that Shiro suddenly wasn’t visiting Keith as often, but the pained expression on Shiro’s face made her falter. She stopped mid-sentence continued her work in silence.

Maybe he should adopt a cat, just to make it feel a little less empty. Cherry always did wonders to comfort him if he was feeling keyed up.

 

* * *

 

Several weeks passed without Haggar calling for him at all, but he didn’t let that lull him into complacency. The same sense of dread he’d been experiencing just increased. So when the witch finally summoned him, he’d resigned himself to further suffering. Entering the warehouse that Haggar had directed him to was just confirmation that she was planning something. It wasn’t the type of place that she usually had him work, and it wasn’t the arena either. His hair stood on end and his stomach inched its way up his throat as he entered the poorly-lit building. Parts of the moss-covered walls and ceiling were crumbling, and he could feel that this place was on the very edge of Bordertown, the thinnest of barriers between it and the human realm. Everything stank of cold iron.

“Took you long enough,” Haggar snapped, appearing from the murky shadows in her usual ratty robes. “I was about to send someone to fetch you.”

“Perhaps I got lost,” Shiro said primly.

Haggar sneered. “Watch yourself, your highness, else I’ll put you on a leash.”

“Would that really be much different than the arrangement we already have?” Shiro retorted.

The witch didn’t reply; conversation never went very far with her. He sighed and followed her deeper into the dilapidated warehouse.

A hulking figure emerged from the gloom, and Shiro stiffened. Had Haggar finally grown tired of the contract and brought him here to simply do away with him? He was under the charm of protection, but still…

The figure stepped closer, revealing himself to be a massive ogre with sharp teeth and shaggy purple hair. One of his eyes was replaced by a glowing magic orb and one arm was pitch black, banded with purple veins. He radiated the same magical energy as Haggar, and Shiro guessed that the eye and limb had been replaced by her; the same as his own arm. He shuddered at the hideous appendage, subconsciously holding his healed arm close to his chest. From behind his back, the ogre procured a massive axe. Shiro flinched, but he didn’t raise it to strike. Instead, he offered him the handle.

The weapon was for him. Shiro hesitated. This wasn’t the arena, and this weapon was not one of a warrior. It was that of an executioner. His sense of dread increased, nausea rolling through him in a heavy wave.

He peered into the darkness, but the sunlight filtering through the grimy windows and gaps in the ceiling weren’t enough to see farther than a few feet. Haggar and the ogre probably didn’t even realize that he couldn’t see. The witch used some kind of magic to navigate, blind as she was, and the magic orb probably did the same for the ogre.

“I can’t see anything,” Shiro complained.

Haggar huffed in annoyance. “Sendak-” The ogre apparently had a name. “-turn on the lights.”

There was the heavy clunk of an antiquated switch being thrown, and somehow a handful of the overhead lights buzzed and flickered to life.

And Shiro reeled back in horror. In the middle of the warehouse a slender, trembling figure was tied to a chair, a sack thrown over their head. They’d brought him here to kill someone in cold blood. No fight, fair or not; a helpless individual that could do nothing to fight back.

His eyes darted to Haggar. The witch had a smug smile on her gnarled face. She knew that this would be his breaking point. There was no way he could go through with this.

“Kill her.”

Shiro turned back to the prisoner. He wished he’d spent more time with Keith. He wished he’d never met Keith at all. He knew that Keith would understand, but it still hurt to know that he would probably grieve for him.

He hefted the axe and approached the chair. A pair of familiar blond pigtails were visible poking out from beneath the sack covering the prisoner’s head. Shiro’s gut clenched. Haggar never intended for him to fulfil this command. This agreement had always been rigged, she was always after his soul.

Haggar’s prisoner was Romelle.

Guilt clawed at his stomach. He’d been so focused on Keith that he’d never considered that Haggar might use _Romelle_. Her position as essentially a servant had blinded him to the fact that she was dear to him, and he considered her life to be precious. But Haggar had seen it, and now his worst fear had come to pass.

He looked at the witch, her thin lips stretched into a grotesque grin as she waited to see what Shiro would do. Sendak stood a few steps behind her, unarmed but still managing to look menacing. He had no doubt that should he try to weasel out of this somehow, Sendak would be there to apprehend him. That was likely why Haggar had even brought him along. He was trapped.

Shiro raised the axe.

And brought it down on the ropes binding Romelle to the chair.

The halfie scrambled to her feet the moment she was free, snatching the sack off her head.

“Shiro?” she exclaimed as she turned to him, her eyes wide with shock and fear.

“No time,” Shiro said. “You need to get out of here. Now.”

He pushed Romelle out of the way just as a bolt of magic crackled from Haggar’s outstretched hand.

“Run!” Shiro shouted.

Romelle bit her lip but she nodded, fleeing towards the door of the warehouse as Shiro warded off another bolt of malevolent magic with the axe in his hands. It had been a mistake to give him a weapon if they did not want him to fight back.

“It’s locked!” Romelle cried, tugging at the door.

“Shit,” Shiro cursed.

Sendak and Haggar were both grinning still.

“Foolish prince,” Haggar said. “You cannot save her, and all you have done is doomed yourself.”

“I will not die with any more blood on my hands,” Shiro said, gauging the weight of the axe by lightly hefting it. The arena had made him much stronger than he had been before. Small mercies.

“Noble, but stupid,” Sendak said.

The ogre raised his magical arm, and it began to glow as a blade emerged from his knuckles.

A wildly irrational image of Sendak as a villainous version of Wolverine popped unbidden into Shiro’s head.

“I am going to kill her, and I will not make it quick. If only you had obeyed your orders, you could have spared her this suffering.”

Sendak was drawing close to Romelle, and Haggar’s hands were still surrounded with crackling purple magic.

“Romelle, duck!”

The halfie obeyed immediately, and Shiro chucked the axe at the metal door. The hinges snapped, and with a screeching groan, it twisted enough for Romelle to scramble through and escape.

He smirked triumphantly. “I’m afraid you won’t have that particular satisfaction of torturing me with her death. We agreed upon my soul, nothing more.”

Haggar ground her teeth in dissatisfaction. “Sendak! Bind him!”

Shiro had no intention of resisting. He’d thrown away his weapon, and had no great magical strength to combat Haggar. This was the agreement he’d made, and he’d broken it. His soul was hers by magical law.

“It’s almost a shame,” Haggar said as Sendak dragged him towards a hook hanging from the warehouse ceiling. “Had you completed our bargain, it would have been enjoyable to see you return to the Realm like a naive child, truly believing that they’d accept you back.”

Shiro had long since stopped caring about returning to the Realm, but he frowned at her words. Had that not been what their agreement entailed?

“What do you mean?” he demanded.

He hissed in pain as Sendak snapped iron shackles over his wrists, the metal burning his flesh.

Haggar chuckled. “I said I would restore the appearance of your body. Did you truly think I could heal what had been done to you? Nothing can turn back time, highness.”

She waved her hands, and Shiro was horrified to see that the arm that he believed to be healed was just like Sendak’s - black and veined with purple magic. He realized all at once that this was what Keith had Seen all along, and he’d been too thoughtless to even consider asking the Sighted human about it.

“You gave up your soul for nothing,” Haggar said smugly.

Shiro hung his head, his eye stinging with hot tears. He was a fool, and had truly learned nothing since his first encounter with the Unseelie. At least that time he’d hurt no one but himself. Now he had friends who he cared about that cared for him in return. He desperately wished he could have at least said goodbye to Keith.

This was what Haggar had been after all along. She wanted to break him by any means.

 

* * *

 

**K E I T H**

 

Keith had felt a strange uneasiness all day, an oppressive force that crackled against his skin. Three of his crystal wands cracked, and a shelf of freshly-made potions gave out, dumping the glass jars to shatter onto the floor. Miserable and on edge, he cleaned up the mess of glass and liquid.

He tried seeking answers in the cards, but five separate spreads were all conflicting and inconclusive. Frustrated, he threw his decks in a drawer and paced the room. Cherry trilled at him inquisitively. He tried to pick her up, but she squirmed away, darting under his bed instead. So she was feeling upset, too.

It was obvious that his limited magical abilities weren’t enough to puzzle this out. His particular specialties were no good here. He needed to go to a more powerful witch. While he hated bothering Allura for every little problem, his instincts were telling him that something was seriously wrong.

After checking to make sure there was definitely no glass left on the floor that could potentially hurt Cherry, he headed out.

As usual, Allura was expecting him, and had a cup of tea already prepared.

“Shiro troubles again?” she asked with a knowing smile. “I don’t know why you haven’t just asked him out yet. Everybody knows you two were cozying up at that festival last month.”

“Not important right now,” Keith dismissed. “Something is wrong and I don’t know what it is. I need your help.”

Allura opened her mouth to speak, but Keith made a strangled sound, yanking the necklace he always wore away from his skin in alarm. Allura’s protection charm was glowing and pulsing with heat, burning his chest.

“Shiro is in danger,” he said. “I gotta go.”

“Keith… are you sure? If he’s broken the contract with Haggar, then there’s nothing you can do.” Allura’s eyebrows knitted together in concern.

“He wouldn’t break his oath without a very good reason,” Keith said, already tugging on his boots. “And there is something I can do - kill that fucking witch.”

“There’s no way you can go against her magic, she is more powerful than you can imagine!”

“Not as a witch, but I’m not planning on facing her as a witch. I’m going to face her as a pissed off human with something sharp. Can I borrow a sword?”

“You’re going to face an ancient Unseelie witch with a sword?” Allura asked flatly, but she was already opening her broom-and-weapons closet.

“Yeah. Most things die pretty effectively when they are stabbed. I’ll be fine, Allura. I’ve got the power of love on my side. Or something.”

Allura stopped him with a hand on his arm as he was headed out the door, sword in hand. “Keith. Be careful.”

Keith felt the tingle of Allura’s magic flow into him, and he smiled at her. “I will. Thanks, Allura.”

Slinging the sword over his back, he revved up his bike and closed his eyes. The protection charm pulsed with energy against his chest. It would lead him to Shiro. He took off down the streets, pushing the bike to its top speed.

The charm led him far, far away from Allura’s house, towards the outskirts of Bordertown. A wrong turn could land him back in the human world, and there was no telling if he’d be able to find his way over the border again.

Worn-out warehouses, the landscape of so much of Bordertown, rose up around him, the windows mainly shattered and the walls covered in vines and graffiti. There was no one around, and the engine of his bike echoed loudly in the empty alleys.

Just then, movement caught his eye. A blond halfie girl, running full tilt towards him.

“Keith!” She called out.

“Romelle!” Keith twisted the bike, bringing it to a halt.

Romelle gasped for breath, hands on her knees. “It’s Shiro! In that warehouse! They kidnapped me… and they’re going to kill him!”

“Not if I have anything to say about it,” Keith said, setting his jaw. “Get yourself someplace safe. I’m going in there.”

“Don’t do anything stupid!” Romelle wailed.

“Too late, already planning on it.” Keith revved the bike, and aimed it right towards the wall of the warehouse. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :3c


	9. VIII

He knew it was pointless, but Shiro couldn’t help but pull on his shackles as the witch approached. He cried out in pain as the iron burned his skin.

Haggar cackled, her ratty robes fluttering. The miasma of her evil magic that continuously surrounded her filled the air with a dark energy. Shiro felt its suffocating force press against him.

“Please,” he whispered helplessly.

“Oh, I do love to hear a Seelie beg for mercy,” Haggar said, grinning. She withdrew a wicked-looking dagger from the depths of her robes. “But you know it won’t do you any good. You accepted the contract, and now I get to take what is mine. One soul, as promised.”

Shiro closed his eyes, turning his head away as if it would delay whatever horrors Haggar was about to inflict on him.

Surprisingly, it did, as the pain he was expecting didn’t come.

“What is that?” Haggar was asking.

Shiro dared to open his eyes.

Haggar was looking around, an expression of irritation on her scarred face.

Shiro heard what Haggar was referring to at the same moment that Sendak did, but unlike the two Unseelie fae, he knew exactly what it was.

“Oh no,” he whispered, right before a familiar bright red motorcycle drove straight through the far wall of the warehouse.

The bike skidded to a stop among the debris and Keith swung his leg over, pulling off his helmet with one hand and grabbing a steel baseball bat off the back with the other.

“Leave Shiro alone,” he said, pointing the bat at Haggar.

Haggar recovered from her shock at being interrupted by a human witch on a motorcycle literally driving through the wall, which was, in Shiro’s opinion, more badass than anything in all the action movies Keith had shown him.

“A brave display, mortal, but I’m afraid ‘Shiro’ here has already agreed to give me his soul,” she sneered, her dark energies whipping her cloak into a frenzy again.

“Then I propose a trade,” Keith said. “You release him, and get the life of a human in return.”

“Keith, no!” Shiro shouted, straining at his bonds and crying out in pain.

Keith cast him a glare, but Haggar apparently wasn’t interested in his offer, as she flung her head back and laughed.

“What would I want with the pathetic life of a human when I have the strong soul of a Seelie prince?” she demanded through her laughter.

Keith spun the baseball bat with one hand. “Fair enough,” he acknowledged. “What would make it a more equal trade?”

Haggar folded her arms, smirking.

“I will accept your deal, if you can beat Sendak in combat,” she said, pointing to the hulking ogre.

Sendak grinned slowly, the magic orb in place of one of his eyes lighting up brighter.

Keith shrugged nonchalantly.

“Seems like reasonable terms,” he said.

“Keith!” Shiro shouted again. “Don’t do this!”

Keith wasn’t a warrior, he was a witch, despite all the tenacity and fearlessness he was currently displaying. Even the strongest of human soldiers would struggle against an ogre, especially one enhanced with Haggar’s dark magic. Keith didn’t stand a chance.

“Shiro, I know what I’m doing,” Keith said calmly. “So, if I fight your pet monster and win, you’ll let Shiro go?”

Sendak grunted, displeased with being called a pet.

“If you can win against Sendak, Shiro is free to go,” Haggar agreed.

“I accept the terms,” Keith said, flipping the bat over before gripping it between his hands like a sword.

Shiro blinked, and suddenly it _was_ a sword, a blade almost taller than Keith himself, the edge glinting in the dim lighting of the warehouse. He looked again, sidelong, and it was just a baseball bat. He realized that _this_ was Keith’s true magical strength, the power to make things appear to be something they weren’t. A parlor trick on steroids, the strength of the illusion bordered faerie glamour itself. Healing and charms didn’t hold a candle to it.

Sendak scoffed at the trick.

“You think you can fight me with a shiny falsehood?” he asked.

Keith smirked. “Why don’t you come find out?” he challenged.

Sendak grinned and charged at Keith, his magical arm growing spikes like a club. Shiro flinched, looking away.

The sound of the collision he anticipated never came. Shiro looked out to see that Keith had simply dodged. Sendak was large and powerful, but he didn’t have the agile speed of the human witch.

“Stop dancing away and fight me!” Sendak bellowed as Keith avoided his attacks.

“I’ll fight you when you can catch me!” Keith shot back.

Haggar wrinkled her nose, clearly displeased that this wasn’t as quick and one sided as she’d anticipated.

“Get on with it!” she demanded. “He is one tiny mortal, crush him!”

Shiro watched with growing dread, powerless to do anything more while he remained shackled.

He could see Keith grow tired as the conflict wore on, his movements becoming less fluid and more desperate. Haggar could see it too, and she cackled, knowing that once Keith grew too weary to avoid Sendak’s attacks, it was over. Soon, Keith’s fleet-footed evasion was becoming narrow escapes, until scrapes and bruises from barely avoiding the brunt of the ogre’s strikes littered his body, blood staining his clothes in numerous places.

All it would take is one misstep, one falter, and Keith would be done for.

When it happened, Shiro saw it play out as if it was in slow motion. Keith stumbled, going to one knee hard enough to make him cry out.

“Keith!” he shouted, ignoring the agony in his wrists as he yanked on his restraints.

Sendak swung his spiked limb down.

Haggar was grinning.

But so was Keith.

At the last moment, he brought up his ‘blade’ up to meet Sendak. There was a bright flash, a sickening sound, and blood splattered against the ground as Sendak’s limb was severed from his body.

The ogre stumbled back. “H-how?” he demanded, clutching the bloody stump of his arm.

Keith got to his feet, his blade glowing with such vivid energy Shiro had to squint against it. Somehow, the sword was real now, and he realized that the _baseball bat_ had been the glamour, not the other way around. Keith had tricked the tricksters.

“I showed you what you wanted to see,” Keith said simply, and he charged forward, running Sendak through with enough force that the massive ogre stumbled back.

He fell backwards heavily with a guttural groan that trailed off into a dying gurgle, Keith’s sword still sprouting from his chest. Keith collapsed as well, falling to his knees as his energy was depleted all at once.

The shock Shiro felt was mirrored on Haggar’s scarred face. Haggar recovered faster, snatching up the dagger she’d threatened Shiro with and brandishing it at Keith.

The human witch just scoffed at her.

“It’s over, Haggar. You’ve lost. _Honor the agreement_.” Keith managed to retain the commanding tone of his voice, exhausted and on his knees as he was.

Haggar seethed, the dark magic whipping around her like a maelstrom of malevolence.

“You have no idea the depth of influence I wield!” she sneered. “You’re no match for me in magical might, with your pretty parlor tricks.”

“What are you going to do, turn him to snakes and lions and hot brands in my arms?” Keith asked with a crooked grin. He was covered in abrasions and too weak to stand, but his confidence didn’t falter.

Haggar smirked. “Is that how you see yourself? You’re missing a very crucial part of the story to have that work. You know full well that your womb is fallow. _Foolish child_ , to come here and challenge me without tradition on your side. You cannot hope to be the valiant, heroic lover when you have not even lain together!”

“I need no tradition,” Keith said. He gritted his teeth and rose to his feet, even as his knees shook. “I have rejected everything else that the world has decided for me, and have made my own path. You agreed to my terms. I fulfilled my end.”

Shiro felt the shackles loosen until they vanished, reappearing in Haggar’s hands.

Keith’s gaze darted over to him, meeting his eyes before inclining his head slightly towards the corpse of the ogre with the sword sticking out of it. Shiro nodded slightly and carefully inched towards Sendak.

Haggar seethed in displeasure, but there was nothing she could do. She had agreed. “I will enjoy torturing you for the rest of your miserable life, so recklessly thrown away for a man who is not even your lover proper.”

Keith shrugged, offering his wrists towards the manacles. Shiro struggled to pull the sword out of Sendak’s body, his stomach dropping in panic. But the moments the restraints touched Keith’s skin, they turned red-hot and exploded in Haggar’s face, sending her stumbling backwards.

“What treachery is this?” she demanded. “We had an agreement!”

“We did,” Keith said with a growing smirk. “But you should have examined the terms a little better. You agreed to let Shiro go so long as I defeated Sendak in combat, which I have done.”

Haggar screeched, getting to her feet again. “In return for your soul!”

“No. In return for a _human_ soul. But I’m not a human.”

Shiro finally extricated the blade just in time to see the glamour peel away from Keith, his appearance wavering until the features he was so accustomed to seeing solidified into something slightly different.

The pointed tips of his ears gave him away first, and then the vividly purple eyes and sharper features. Keith was a _halfie_. An Unseelie halfie at that, based on his pale coloring and violet eyes. There was no time to process this revelation, though, because Haggar was raising up her hands, energy crackling around her.

“You are truly foolish, to try to deceive me,” she hissed. “Now there is nothing stopping me from simply killing you.”

Keith glanced over her shoulder at Shiro. “I don’t know about that.”

Shiro plunged the sword into her back in a single, swift strike.

She had no chance to even scream as all the air escaped her lungs. Shiro released the blade, and her body crumpled to the ground. He stepped over her just in time to catch Keith as his strength gave out.

“Took you long enough,” he muttered, giving up his full weight to Shiro’s arms.

Shiro couldn’t help but notice that Keith used his glamour to adjust his height as well, secretly charmed by the fact that the other man now tucked neatly beneath his chin.

“I thought I was going to have to stall her with, like, stories or something all night,” Keith continued. “Do you know how hard that is? Stupid question, you’re a high fae, you could likely spin tales to save your own skin for however long you needed.”

“Keith,” Shiro said with a growing smile.

“But we can’t all be fancy Seelie princes, raised from birth on weird fae doublespeak and loopholes,” Keith rambled on. “Shit, I never even took any of those improv classes for theater that Lance is constantly harassing me about. I was totally flying by the seat on my pants.”

“Keith,” Shiro repeated, pulling him closer.

“I didn’t do too badly, if I do say so myself-”

“Keith!” Shiro interrupted. “I would like to kiss you now.”

“Oh.” Keith paused, looking up at him. “I suppose that would be alright.”

Shiro grinned before he tilted Keith’s face up and pressed their lips together. Keith wound one arm around his neck, leaning up into the kiss with all the strength that a halfie who just went toe-to-toe with a demonically enhanced monster could manage. Which was surprisingly a lot, and Shiro went hot with the realization of just how deep Keith’s feelings were for him.

“You’re amazing,” Shiro breathed when the kiss ended. “Every time I think I know everything about you, you surprise me again.” He smiled and lightly touched the tip of a pointed ear.

Keith turned his gaze away. “Yeah, well, this was one surprise I was hoping to keep from you. This side of myself… I’m still not totally comfortable with it. The Unseelie have done horrible things. They’ve hurt you over and over! My mom just, ditched me as a baby because she didn’t want to deal with the consequences of her actions. And I’m… I’m one of them.”

Shiro silenced Keith with another kiss. “You may have Unseelie blood in your veins, but you have a pure heart,” he told him. “That’s what I see when I look at you. Keith, you’re the most beautiful man I’ve ever beheld.”

Keith’s eyes grew watery, and he buried his face against Shiro’s chest.

Shiro wrapped his arms around him, holding him close and kissing the top of his head. “You’ve saved me yet again, I owe you quite a debt.”

“Uh-huh,” Keith mumbled, pulling back a little. “And I’m absolutely going to hold that over your head. I’ll never have to clean out Cherry’s litter box again.”

Shiro laughed at that. “You planning on keeping me around, then?”

Keith grinned crookedly. “I’ve already done all this work to keep you alive, I suppose I might as well.”

Shiro couldn’t resist kissing Keith yet again, elated by the fact that this was allowed now, when he’d been wanting it for so long. As quickly as the joy came, though, it faded, the realization that he was still scarred and disfigured sweeping through him.

“I’m sorry that I look like this,” he said softly, turning away. “You deserve the prince that I used to be. Better, really.”

“What are you talking about?” Keith demanded. “I love you exactly the way you are, and I always have. Our scars are part of who we are.”

He held up one arm, pushing his sleeve aside to reveal multiple faded scars in a row up his skin. “They might remind us of darker times in our lives, and we might wish that we could erase the things that happened, but they also remind us that we can heal and move forward. The person who inflicted these scars doesn’t even exist anymore. Now I’m Keith, and no one tries to tell me any differently. I’m a stronger person for owning who I am. Would you really want to go back to the prince you used to be?”

Shiro gazed into Keith’s earnest eyes, and he shook his head. “No,” he said. “He was naive and selfish. He wouldn’t have been able to love you like I do, he would have only used and hurt you.”

Keith smiled, cupping the side of Shiro’s face with one hand and gently kissing along the edge of his scars. “And for the record, I think the scars make you look far more handsome. High fae all look the same - super boring.”

Shiro snorted in amusement. “Who am I to argue with the most beautiful man I’ve ever met?”

Keith grinned. “Keep that energy going. I like the idea of being in a relationship with somebody who can’t ever argue with me.”

He sighed softly, closing his eyes and leaning against Shiro for a moment before he straightened. “Let’s go home. I’m exhausted, and it’s a long walk.” He glanced mournfully at the ruined bike.

Shiro immediately scooped Keith up into his arms, much to the surprise of the halfie. “I happen to know a great mechanic who might be able to fix up your bike,” he said teasingly.

“Wow, really?” Keith said, playing along. “You think he’d be willing to do you a favor like that?”

“Maybe,” Shiro said, carrying Keith out of the warehouse and into the bright sunlight of the Bordertown streets. “If I ask really nicely.”

Keith rested his head against Shiro’s shoulder, and the Seelie reveled in his closeness.

“After you’re feeling better, we should go out for Thai food,” he suggested.

“That sounds good,” Keith murmured. “Would we call it technically our first date, or was that the food truck festival?”

“Honestly? I think the night we met was actually our first date, even though we weren’t aware of it. I’ve been falling for you since the moment I saw you.”

“Wow. That’s really sappy. But like… me too.”

“Thank the stars for the matchmaking powers of magic chihuahuas,” Shiro said with a smile.

 

* * *

 

**K E I T H**

**~O N E   Y E A R   L A T E R~**

 

Keith gently pushed away Cherry’s inquisitive paw as she once again reached for the pen he was using to write labels for a new batch of potions.

“Go play with Jet,” he complained, scooping her up and placing her on the floor.

Cherry stared at him pitifully for a moment before scampering off to find the large black cat that lived with them now.

Shiro’s apartment was much larger than his own, and he now had an entire room dedicated to his witchcraft. Sometimes he missed the cozy attic room, the first place he’d truly been able to call his own, but then Shiro would come home from his shift as a barista at the Enchanted Teakettle and happiness at how much his life had changed would fill his chest.

Speaking of… Keith heard Shiro’s familiar voice greeting the cats, and he finished up his last label to head out to meet him in the kitchen so they could start dinner.

“Hello my dearest,” Shiro said, extracting a small bouquet of flowers from behind his back when he saw Keith.

They were just from the vines outside of their building, but Keith grinned as he accepted them. His love for Shiro threatened to overwhelm him on a daily basis.

“How was work?” he asked as he filled a jar with water for the bouquet.

Shiro pressed a kiss to his temple, and then another to the tip of his ear. He’d stopped wearing his human glamour these days, settling more comfortably into his identity as a halfie.

“The usual,” Shiro said. “What about you?”

“The usual,” Keith echoed.

Granted, ‘usual’ in Bordertown was always anything but ordinary. Keith had delivered a package to a group of humans who were pretending to be vampires in a decrepit mansion on Opal Street, and then a letter to an actual vampire at a sleek club on Aurora Lane.

Life in Bordertown was weird, but it was home. And Keith wouldn’t have it any other way.

He wrapped his arms around Shiro, hugging him tightly. “I’m happy you’re home.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading, I hope you enjoyed it! I would be delighted if you left a comment, even if it's just a keysmash.
> 
> This was a super fun experience, shout out to the hardworking mods who put this together, and to everyone who participated! 
> 
> I'm really glad this event forced me to fully flesh out this tiny scrap of a universe. It may not be exactly _Bordertown_ (it definitely borrowed elements from Holly Black's _Tithe_ series like, a lot) but the spirit of it holds true to the original concept. A place where outcasts can go to be truly themselves, even if that means hard work and tribulation. Being authentic to who you are is worth any hardship.


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